The Will of the Future
by ToBetasered
Summary: The Great Alliance lives again. The Ascended members of the SGC past and future recall the greatest adventures of their mortal lives as a new saga begins. An Ancient plot changes the fate of a galaxy.
1. Chapter 1

**This story is a work of fanfiction and any similarities to the characters of any television, film or literary work is completely intentional. The author does not in any way shape or form profit from the following work nor claims any responsibility for the efforts of others. Said author acknowledges that they simply weren't cool enough to think of something like this on their own. The following story is a fanfiction cross over. **

**The Willed Future**

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They looked on as their descendants proceeded with the titanic endeavor. The potential that they had long ago foreseen within these children all those millions of years ago had finally come to fruition. There were many who contemplated returning to the physical realm to share in new adventures as equals. There were a few who had already done so, discreetly living their lives anew among these wonderful children.

There were others who yet remained to observe from a higher plane of existence as their second evolution tackled problems that had plagued their ancestors and found solutions that equaled, if not in some ways, exceeded the works of their forebears. The new type of gateway that this second evolution had created was an achievement as monumental and potentially troublesome as the very first Astria Porta.

_**A being of light watches carefully from a higher plane of existence…**_

Even as he observed the final preparations for the re-activation of the Quantum Gate, the ascended being once known as Daniel Jackson could not help but contemplate how far mankind had come nor recall how easily it could have fallen both to threats without and within. The Great Alliance had once again been reborn though by this time it had only been in existence for a mere fraction of the length of time that its previous incarnation had lasted.

Still lasted as the Nox yet existed, living in peaceful contemplation of the universe and periodic diplomatic contact with the other species of the Alliance. The Asgard lived on in the spirit of the fifth race if nothing more. The Asgard Datacores gifted to the Tau'ri and the founders of the then fledgling Edenian League were guarded by the sleeping minds of those Asgard who had been kept in waiting until such time that a cure for their genetic degradation could be found.

There was talk of one day seeding a few worlds of the Ida Galaxy with proto-forms of Asgard life, much as the Alterans had done with humans, but such an undertaking required careful study, millennia of planning and constant observation to ensure that what life came into being did not constitute a threat to the survival of the species of the Alliance and more importantly that those beings who were allowed to live, grew and evolved in peace.

Modern humans had learned from the errors of the Alterans and through hardship the races of the Alliance had learned to treat the words of the Nox with the careful deliberation that they deserved. Parenthood on the individual level and especially on the level of creating an entire species was an exercise of love, pain and care where too much or too little could lead to disaster.

The Cimmerian Federation of Worlds, a protectorate of the Edenian League was adamant in their lobby but the magnitude of the task required deep deliberation from all involved.

As Daniel Jackson viewed the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy in his mind, a place known to the Alterans as Avalon, he contemplated the fact that the alliance territory actually encompassed three Galaxies and the majority of a fourth.

The Origin Galaxy, so called by the members of the Human Systems Confederation founded by Tomin, and the Lantea Galaxy named by the Federation of Allied Worlds and Atlantis, a place also known to Terrans as the Pegasus Galaxy. Combined with the Terran Federation, the Free Jaffa Federation and numerous other species and territories in the Avalonan Galaxy's United Federation of Allied Systems, the Great Races Alliance had attained a size and power that greatly dwarfed its predecessor and was still growing.

There were more than twelve trillion known sentient life-forms and thanks to the actions of the Alterans, the machinations of the Goa'uld and the pseudo-benevolent plots of the Ori nearly nine trillion of these life-forms were humans, human-like, human-hybrids or artificially modified humans like the Jaffa.

The Ori had long ago exterminated the majority of non-human life-forms in the Origin Galaxy in their quest to maximize the amount of power that could be extracted from the worship of their followers. While sanctioned Alliance explorers were discovering that Origin wasn't quite as devoid of non-human life as feared, for the most part the reports from the SSV's (Scientific Survey Vehicles) indicated that the Ori had obliterated thousands of non-human civilizations at the first sign of being capable of interstellar flight and thus a threat to their 'Great Truth'.

To date the most advanced species encountered by survey probes lived on an earth sized moon orbiting a gas giant 1.7 times larger than Jupiter in the habitable zone of a binary star system. The species discovered by the Edenian SSV _**Far Places **_appeared to be of living through the equivalent of Earth's Paleothic Period and after a violent encounter with a terrain survey probe the Alliance had left a cloaked satellite in the Star System and declared the local space a restricted zone.

The Wraith of the Lantea Galaxy had held to only one type of diplomatic tactic when dealing with species that were not compatible food sources or were considered possible competition for resources, extermination. Many species had been spared complete annihilation due only to their not having developed communications technology capable of being detected across interstellar distances.

The fact that the Wraith, having used humans as their primary food source, restricted their foraging range to the planets of the Stargate network despite being capable of hyperspace travel was something that also contributed greatly to the survival of an uncounted number of pre-spaceflight, and sublight travel capable nonhuman civilizations that had escaped the notice of the Wraith Swarm.

While the Avalonan Galaxy still held several thousand known species of space-faring and non-space-faring non-human species the Goa'uld had dominated the vast majority of the Galaxy for close to six millennia spreading their human slave races across conquered worlds ever since the System Lord Ra discovered the viability of the new type of host body.

Due to the sheer size of Avalon, there were vast volumes of space that hadn't been touched by humans or Goa'uld. The Alliance had spent close to five hundred years trying to catalogue the planets of the Stargate system and that was merely a fraction of the millions of potential life-supporting worlds to be found.

The true irony of the situation was that predominance of humans in galactic and extragalactic affairs was entirely the work of various superior species and at least one egomaniacal group of parasites with a tendency toward megalomania and delusions of grandeur.

"The meek really did inherit the galaxy." Daniel muttered.

"What was that space-monkey? I didn't hear Ya!" Someone called out from somewhere behind him.

Turning around in response, the vastness of space melted away and was replaced by the scene of a familiar sixties diner. The patrons of the of the cozy eatery were clustered around square tables muttering to each other with rare excitement while periodically pointing to an article in copies of a newspaper that they all seemed to have tucked under an arm or clutched in hand.

The title of the paper was, _**THE**_ _**DAILY UNIVERSE**_

One of the waitresses was a short, dark-haired woman with an aristocratic nose and angular cheek bones who simultaneously winked at Daniel, refilled cups of coffee and pocketed a stolen watch in an oddly bulging apron.

Shaking his head in exasperation Daniel made his way to the counter where he waved away another waitress who went back to talking to a handsome dark-haired cook as the man rolled up his sleeves and placed a plate heaped full of hash browns, eggs and gravy on a tray that was passed along by a dusky-skinned waitress to another customer at the counter.

This person was a slightly over-weight man who was engrossed in a quiet argument with his thin, wild-haired breakfast companion over some trivia of Unified Field Theory. At the other end of the counter, a grey-haired man was filling out a crossword puzzle while pointedly ignoring the suggestions whispered to him by a couple of eighteen year old boys who hung over his shoulders like the devil and angel characters from old cartoons.

One of the boys was of Arab descent and leaned away and smirked playfully at something that the other boy had said. This teen could have passed for the son of the grey-haired man. A younger blond woman and a muscular black man, with a solid horizontal strip of white hair passing around the back of his head from temple to temple looked on in poorly restrained amusement.

After glaring at the harrying teens the grey-haired man seemed to look at Daniel with visible relief as he sat next to the blond woman.

"Jack-" Daniel began.

"What's a nine letter word for a very satisfactory state of being?" Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill, two l's, asked.

"You're not supposed to tell him Daniel." Samantha 'Sam' Carter interrupted as Daniel opened his mouth to respond.

"Indeed, O'Neill has come very far in the six hundred years since he first started this puzzle; I have faith that he will finish it, eventually." The Jaffa, Teal'c added in a bland and slightly mocking tone.

"Aw c'mon!" Jack exclaimed, waving the paper madly he stabbed a finger at the immensely complex crossword puzzle that seemed to shift and change as Daniel watched it. "The first question on this thing was, 'What is the meaning of life?' for crying out loud!"

Sam and Teal'c exchanged wry look as Daniel, predictably, attempted to rationalize the situation. "Well Jack that paper is just an extension of the part of your psyche in tune with the universe around you so the answers are probably related to some personal truth or…"

Daniel trailed off as Jack shot him a dirty look that just screamed 'Shut up you're making my head hurt!' Jack, for his part, decided instead to follow up on his original question, the one that had drawn Daniel's attention.

"So how's it going?" He asked.

"I was just thinking about how far things have come since we first found the Stargate, who would have thought that it would have lead to this? They're building an inter-dimensional gateway now." Daniel answered.

For a second Jack looked pensive, before stating, "Shouldn't they be exploring their own universe, or maybe doing something useful like, fishing?"

Sam rolled her eyes but initially spoke up in agreement, "Well, there are already several expeditions to other Galaxies they should be supporting but they've also been planning this mission since they rediscovered how to create a quantum mirror. To be fair, if they can master this trans-luminal technology and apply it to extra-galactic travel then the exploration of galaxies beyond our local group should be even easier to undertake, I have to admit that it sounds exciting."

Daniel smiled at the woman's enthusiasm but Jack raised an eyebrow as he raised another important point. "What about the endothermic facade whatchamacallit?"

"It's called the entropic cascade effect and they were trying to get around that problem by opening a portal to a completely divergent quantum reality, in theory the effects should not be as pronounced as it would be if they were to travel to a parallel earth. They've already launched multiple probes to measure the rate of entropic failure and so far it seems like they've accounted for that possibility and they have ways of counteracting the effects until they can hopefully return. There shouldn't be any problems" Sam lectured.

A broad-chested man with graying brown hair sitting behind them snorted so hard at those words that he dropped the spoon that he was balancing on the end of his nose. After glancing at the man and Vala who was making her way over to see what the commotion was about Jack began to sneer sarcastically.

"If I had a nickel… You'd think that after all that we've been through someone would finally get a clue, that messing with the weird glowing ring/pedestal/box/door/book/wall ornament/jewel/chair/bug/plant/crystal/mushroom/what have you, especially if you don't know what it is, especially if its humming, **humming _and_ glowing**! Bad idea. It's like humanity's mission is to go where no-one has gone before, and to piss 'em off in new and interesting ways." He complained.

Sam sighed and Daniel looked as if he was going to speak up but it was Teal'c who spoke his mind.

"Indeed O'Neill, I have found that most humans have a curious tendency to engage in what may at the time seem like ill-advised endeavors that others would find in their best interests to avoid. I have witnessed this tendency bring disaster to many human civilizations, yet I feel I should point out that it was this same trend has also resulted in many of your race's greatest achievements..." Teal'c looked at his companions with a measured gaze willing them to remember the time when he had first joined them in what seemed like a helpless cause.

He finished his sentence with a slight nod of respect. "You learn from your mistakes and grow and improve becoming more than you were before."

It was the lightening of the atmosphere of anxiety in the diner that alerted the small group to the fact that all of the occupants had actually been eavesdropping on their conversation.

_It seemed that the Alterans were worried._

Jack shrugged with an unconcerned air and went back to his crossword puzzle uttering only a final bit of wisdom. "I wonder how the fishing is in that quantum reality."

"Copasetic." Vala said.

"Whuh?" Jack turned to her puzzled.

"The word that you're looking for, a condition that's very satisfactory or acceptable, copasetic." She answered with her hands on her hips. "I don't know what you're all so worried about, compared to what the Alliance went through before I doubt that you have much to worry about. Right Daniel?"

Daniel understood, they all remembered the early days of the Alliance when the Wraith and Micheal were still a threat and for all intents and purposes the Terran Federation was largely on it's own with sporadic help from the Tok'Ra, the Jaffa Nation and very rarely, the Nox. The Edenian League had been of great aid to Earth in spite of a number of diplomatic incidents resulting from the desire of certain individuals to secure Earth's position as a galactic power.

He thought back to the days that he had lived in a physical body, the founding of the fledgling International Space Force and the machinations of the most annoying and persistent megalomaniac that SGC had ever encountered. He remembered the war he himself had caused that had very nearly resulted in the extinction of all humans on earth.

They sat together in a diner that was not a diner thinking about the past and the willed future.

"Do you think we should warn them?" Daniel asked.

The others paused and considered the proposal.

"Nah" Jack said after a moment's contemplation. "They'll do just fine. We did good, didn't we?"

Those at the counter shared an intent look as Daniel silently informed the Others of the fact that he was only going to keep an eye on things. After all, what could go wrong?

Vala grinned and threw an arm around Daniel's shoulders, "Sounds interesting…What _were we_ talking about? And what's my cut in the take?"

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**Terran Federation Space en route to Binary Star System Symplegades, currently under the jurisdiction of the United federation of Allied Systems (UFAS), Restricted Zone**

**Time:** Day Cycle - 0900 Terran Calendar 2773 CE, Alliance Calendar Year 7

**Location:** TFSF DSBS Prometheus, assigned to UFAS 33rd Monitor Fleet, Currently in Hyperspace

**Reading…**

**Cmmd. Log:** Entry no. 7732 UFAS Victor Stromner Col. TFSF, reg. no. 06094092

_**Warning, Black Book Entry, Contents may be censored by UFAS security directive #32-F and 45-A through J violation of said directives punishable by life imprisonment at a level 4 confinement facility **_

_**Warning, Black Box Entry, Fidelity of contents suspect due to damage to DSBC AJAX Data Core 98.7% restored by OFI (UFAS Office of Fleet Intelligence) Division 2 Signals Intelligence **_

**Loading…**

**Please Stand By…**

**The following is a record of the 666****th**** activation of the quantum gate during Project Symplegades as taken from the mission record of Colonel Victor Stromner TFSF Cmnd. DSBC **_**AJAX**_**. **

A mature human male sat in an ergonomic chair that seemed to be made from a glowing blue liquid. The chair seemed to mold itself to the form of the seated man and appeared to be suspended above the floor by nothing other than faint threads of light visible as they stretched across its base and back, fading from sight as they came out of contact with the chair, looking like a delicate spider-web. The man looked to be in his late forties, mid-fifties and had graying dark hair that burned silver at the temples in the brilliant light of the white, featureless room.

His elbows were propped on the armrests of the seat that was made from the same gel-like substance. His hands were clasped in his lap instead of in the complex bed of viscous circuitry that pooled in the hand-rests. A virtual desk made of coherent light and ions held in suspended fields of force was arranged before the man and on this desk and floating above it were several reports of seemingly similar insubstantiality.

Images flickered about quickly as lines of information and raw data scrolled through the air, quickly replaced by holographic displays of three dimensional objects the revolved in place quickly before settling on a display of what seemed to be a display of disparately designed spacecrafts. The man blinked and all other displays cancelled, bringing up a enlarged view of the fleet. His attention seemed to be focused in particular on a single craft more than any other.

"Telamon, please display the FJF Rak'sha with specifications." The man said quietly.

Those commands could have been made without vocalization. Utilizing the secure neural interface keyed to the Colonel's brain activity, gene indicators, nano-implants and mitochondrial aura he could have quickly and efficiently performed his duties in perfect silence if he so wished. Yet there was something irrationally unnerving about the hollow emptiness of the security veil that made UFAS Commander John Stromner want to speak aloud if only to hear his own voice.

The FJF (Free Jaffa Federation) Ha'tak looked like a wedge-shaped isosceles based pyramid that floated in space on the widest face relative to the system plane. The widest face was 631 meters in width at the base and the entire body was 1432 meters in length. The other two faces were 540 meters in length at their base. Three massive neutrino-ion powered engines were attached to the rear of the vessel and eighteen comparatively smaller gravimetric projectors were attached in clusters of six along the vertices of the craft within wedge-shaped, armored pods. The projectors were used in conjunction with the vessels inertial dampeners to maneuver the enormous bulk of the Executor class Ha'tak Rak'sha.

"Zoom in on that image, focus on weapons emplacements." The colonel requested in a firm voice with only the merest hint of his Austrian heritage.

The hologram smoothly swiveled as array upon array of directed energy weapons was highlighted in turn. Covering every available surface of the Star Destroyer themed vessel, designed by and for Free Jaffa the FJF Rak'sha was an intimidating sight.

Next highlighted were the shielded launch silos for the notoriously unstable antimatter/naquadriah warhead, Pillum XII 'shield penetration' missiles. These weapons were originally a Terran creation that was of a design vaguely reminiscent of a cross between a grey, metallic Alteran drone and a swordfish.

The image rotated to present the dorsal surface and then the ventral surface in turn before settling on a lateral view. Indicators pointed out where the plasmatic beam projectors, and well, as Colonel General Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill once said, big honkin' space guns were arranged in staggered rows along the length of the hull on three of the four faces along with disguised and heavily armored shield projectors on all four surfaces.

The graying colonel silently input another command with a mere thought and the voice of Telamon Ship AI began speaking.

"Executor class, Free Jaffa Federation Ha'tak Rak'sha… Weapons, plasma cannons of anti-fighter defense, plasma beam cannons for capital vessel warfare, anti-capital ship missiles of variable yield warheads."

The image above the virtual desk changed to a recording of a similar ship disgorging a massive amount of smaller craft the size of fighters and bombers along with what looked like two corvettes shaped like a flying wing.

"Carrier capacity, ninety-six aerospace domination gliders divided into twelve squads. Two wings of twelve heavily shielded troop transports and twelve cloaked and shielded bombers capable of carrying ground, orbital and anti-capital ship bombardment weapons load-outs." The normally stoic AI lectured calmly.

On the image three large flight bays were slowly rising out of the hull on each face, opening toward the rear of the ship under the cover of massive, rearward facing double barreled plasma cannons and clusters of anti-fighter batteries.

"Point defense and close in anti-fighter support is provided by weapons platforms capable of firing phase-modulated bolts of plasma constrained within a degrading energy field. Rate of fire is classified- OFI estimates between six hundred and one thousand rounds a minute. Range, fifty thousand kilometers, point defense batteries sacrifice effective range for power as the dynamic energy fields that contain the fusion energy for a few seconds before unleashing their payload in clouds of high energy particles."

The recording continued, depicting an ovoid bubble surrounding the ship, pulsing with a golden yellow glow. The image paused and Telamon continued.

"Shields are based off of designs used by the former System Lord Anubis to protect his vessels and have been upgraded over the decades in accordance with the twenty-fourth century Terran and Tollan Remnant Treaties."

The image shrank into the background before returning to a representation of the space outside the vessel.

"In summation an Executor class Ha'tak is a super carrier with the equivalent of half a Lagrange Point Defense Station's fighter compliment and capable of carrying more during war time. These vessels are a well rounded asset capable of fielding both terrestrial armies and space forces with a slightly greater emphasis on offensive options rather than defensive."

Victor leaned back into the seat and sighed, shifting from side to side until the semi-intelligent viscous solid material of his chair altered its contours, inclination and firmness to suit his mood. He frowned slightly in a fit of pique, remembering his grandmother's admonition that chairs were meant to be functional not comfortable. He wondered idly what she would have thought of him now.

The control-chair, in which he sat, like most working surfaces exposed to the crew of the _Ajax_, generated a mild force field with subtle energy and inertial dampening capabilities. In the case of his chair the fields were adjusted so that it felt like he was being suspended by an embarrassingly soft blanket of air while still ensuring his safety in case of an emergency.

The idea was to reduce injuries to the crew in the event that the shipboard EID generators were stressed during combat, a similar precaution to the one that in the earliest of Earth's spaceflight generations ensured that all loose materials onboard a vessel was stowed away or bolted down during special maneuvers.

Victor started, and then sighed audibly when the lobes o his headrest touched against his temples and began to vibrate gently.

_Screw functionality_…

"Telamon, give me an armament analysis of the Langaran Batlemoon Ossa." He requested with his eyes half-closed.

At his request a massive irregular sphere appeared before him. It was approximately three thousand meters in diameter according to the flowing stream of text scrolling next to the three dimensional image. There were multiple weapons emplacements strategically positioned over the weapon station's entire surface in a grid pattern.

"Langaran Battlemoon Ossa; a Langaran Battle Moon mounts a higher density of destructive weaponry on its surface area than a FJF Executor-class Ha'tak but possesses shields that are several orders weaker than normal within the Alliance military, relying more on structural integrity fields, gravimetric deflectors and heavy amour, hundreds of meters thick, capable of withstanding multiple nuclear strikes."

The AI stopped speaking for a moment and enhanced the image while highlighting a raised section of armor, seventy-one meters across that followed along the meridian and equatorial lines of the battlemoon, crossing once under a mound at the rear of the station and meeting again at a massive dish that was set in a large crater.

"At the end of the Ori War the Langaran people, already beginning to unite against threats of extraterrestrial origin formed the Langaran Governing Council. During occupation by the forces of the Orici, the Priors had dissolved the former governments of Kelowna, Terrania and the Andari Federation. The Langaran Governing Council, formed by the surviving resistance leadership of all three nations with popular support, made reverse engineering the pieces of technology left behind on the planet, their primary endeavor aside from rebuilding and tallying the loss of life."

A flat image of the dish was projected into the air and the battlemoon rotated beside it.

"The Lagrange Point Battlestation alpha-666600, better known as the Battlemoon Avana was the ultimate culmination of this research. Intended to be the primary weapons platform for the Odessa project one of the Langara System's moons was towed to an L1 point and, using excavation technology first pioneered by High Minister Jonas Quinn large volumes of mass were removed from its core."

The image of the Battlemoon shrank and a series of linked, concentric rings were presented in an assembly view.

"Eighteen plasma shockwave synchrotrons were constructed along the station's median and equatorial lines, each consisting of a 1,873 meter in long storage ring and a 992 meter long initial booster ring and a 300 meter long terminal booster ring. Eight powerful antimatter/naquadria reactors power the eighteen linear accelerators that fed high energy particles harvested from the reactors into each booster ring."

The rings receded back into the expanding image and the dish array began to emit a faint blue glow.

"The particles are accelerated to 99.99999999987% the speed of light then shunted into the storage rings. The mass packets are kept there, periodically feeding the anti-particles formed in the ring back into the reactors. When there were sufficient mass packets for firing, the particles were again shunted en masse into terminal booster rings which channeled the flood of particles into a shielded array of emitters."

The crater began to fill with an intense blue light that shone with an intense white light at the core, lighting up space for millions of kilometers like a giant spotlight.

"Using their rudimentary understanding of gravity manipulation, the Langarans were able to create a lens effect that allowed then to focus the ultra-high energy particle beams into a powerful, though crude gravity assisted laser."

The next image was of a battlemoon targeting an asteroid ten light-seconds away. A bright blue tinge outlining the laser was all that could be seen of the energy beam that converted the nickel and aluminum ore asteroid into a rapidly expanding ball of gas.

"Unfortunately, the power generation requirements mean that the laser is only capable of two high power bursts each lasting only 700 milliseconds. After each cycle the system must enter a cool down cycle lasting close to twenty-six minutes to preserve its structural integrity. Due to these power generation limits the artificial gravity generators are limited to the tiny control center in the battlemoon core during firing and neither sub-light travel via gravimetric projectors nor hyperspace travel are possible while the main weapon is cycling. In addition hyperspace travel is restricted to the lower energy bands and hyper light jumps are impossible."

Telamon's voice almost seemed condescending as he concluded his lecture.

"In summation Colonel, a Langaran Battlemoon such as the Ossa is a woefully inadequate as a defense station. The battlemoon needs a dedicated support fleet which must in turn take care to avoid radiation leakage from the large firing envelope of the station's main weapon. Without a properly positioned fleet, enemy ships can simply hold position out of range and use mass drivers to sling asteroids at the station until it is destroyed."

A faint musical tone could be heard ringing softly and persistently as Telamon droned on.

"Thirty-four of these weapons were created and upgraded during the twenty-third century. After the Ikarran disaster when a reactor core breach irradiated a New Kobol colony the resulting reparations and cost of maintenance forced the Langarans to discontinue their Battlemoon project and sell off these installations to interested parties. The Terran Federation acquired ten of these stations for use as commercial waypoint stations after the moons' main weapon was removed. A further eleven was procured during the Serrakin Syndicate Crisis by the Edenian Space Forces (ESF) and the TFSF in a bid to keep the orbital weapons out of the hands of the Lucian Alliance. Most of the installations wer-"

The ringing came again, this time louder and more insistent. With a thought the floating images and Telamon's voice faded into the background as a three dimensional, holographic icon in the shape of a musical note floated before the colonel's eyes. It blinked it time with the musical ringing until it received Colonel Stomner's silent acknowledgement.

With that and a quick mental command, the surrounding energy fields, shields and holographic projections began to collapse. As a result the bubble of force containing the illusionary whiteout that surrounded him vanished, ceasing to cut off all noise from the rest of the CIC/CDC save for emergency alarms and priority queries from his operations staff like the one that had interrupted him.

"siR, Sir?!" Senior Operations Officer Captain Katherine Yaxley spoke to him from her station on the second tier of the CDC, her voice warped slightly in his ear as the last of the privacy screen dissipated.

The Combat Information Centre/Combat Direction Center (CIC/CDC) was the tactical command center of the _Ajax_; located deep within the vessel. Under the control of the craft's commanding officer directed by the senior watch-standers, the CDC handled reports from all shipboard stations and issued orders.

It was composed of three tiers, each connected by three wide steps with the rest of the area separated and enclosed by five foot tall trinium-carbon-titanium barriers that surrounded each tier. The entire command deck was located within an armored capsule that was lined with safety mechanisms and holographic projectors that were used to create an omni-directional display of the _Ajax_'s sensor feeds. The CIC/CDC primary and secondary pods were meant to be self-sufficient and capable of protecting the command crew and marine compliment from any harmful event up to and including an unpowered crash landing on a planet.

Of the three CIC/CDC tiers the first and highest tier enclosed an area of 64 square meters, enough space to seat a commander, embarked General Staff Officer and a civilian observer.

The second tier was a three meter wide strip three steps lower where the 2IC who held the position of Senior Operations Officer and two assistants worked. The third tier was a wider strip of area three steps lower where different groups of action station officers worked including communications watch, engineering watch, tactical weaponry watch, defense screens watch, navigation watch, internal security watch, damage control and medical watch.

The only entrances or exits from the bridge was a sealed one-way matter transport alcove on the second tier that could only be used by authorized Command Deck officers to access secure areas in case of emergency. Constantly under the watch of a marine detail it was deactivated during battle situations when the Commander was in the CIC/CDC.

The only other method of entry was through a Neutronium blast door situated one level below and behind the CIC/CDC and was accessible from the third tier. It was located in such away as to allow marines in defensible positions on all three tiers to enfilade any forces attempting to gain access to the bridge.

"Report!" Colonel Stromner commanded.

"Commander Zhu of the Battle Moon Ossa has just signaled that his team has completed calibration of the sensor package and is ready for the _Radek Zelenka_ to send the activation signal to the Gate." Yaxley stated in her calm and measured tone.

"Major Hussein has indicated that his Marines have secured the facility and verified that the subspace transponders are nominal."

Nodding in acknowledgement the UFAS Commander gazed pensively at the image displayed on the holographic viewer high overhead. There was a structure floating in the depths of space that at first glance would have fooled the eye into believing it was much smaller than it actually was.

From his research the Colonel already knew that the technology was in actuality born from the McKay-Carter Dimensional Bridge theory one of the possible solutions put forward by those seeking to improve upon the ZPM design using what was learned at the Alteran science station Avaria and from Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay's first stint in an Alteran evolution accelerator.

The theory behind the ZPE or zero point energy extractor was that it drew its energy not from subspace or local space but from a parallel reality. The problem that had been encountered was that the method of extraction warped the physical laws of the local region where the extraction process occurred.

This prevented the accurate prediction of the proliferation of exotic particles and the formation of containment fields capable of shielding against the hard radiation that resulted. The McKay-Carter Theory and the McKay mathematical proof allowed for the interaction between parallel realities. This could be used to extract dark energy from another reality, while at the same time leaving the problem of dealing with the exotic particles that formed as a result of extraction in a separate universe.

The problem with this approach had been that finding realities where no life existed was much harder than first thought. The problem had been that most inter-dimensional windows opened into parallel realties were attracted to realities similar to the one in which the Alliance existed as proposed in the Hailey-Miller Theory. Finding an uninhabited quantum reality had turned into a game of roulette with the odds stacked against the player.

The solution to this was the re-discovery of the theory of Quantum Tuning. Through centuries of experimentation and pooling resources with aid from the Nox the Alliance had gained the ability to crudely seek out dimensions using a method of exclusion. After a few decades of encountering both good and evil twins from other realities the ability to discriminate against parallel realities had been partially attained and the ability to enter divergent quantum realities was in part, gained.

Those who were familiar with the superficial design, among whom numbered the combined races of the Great Alliance, would have recognized that the Dimensional Gate looked like two disconnected halves of a Star Gate similar to the ones located in Lantea, only much bigger.

The true scale of the construct could only be understood once one realized that the inner circumference of each half-ring when joined together was a just large enough for the entire fleet currently occupying the lifeless binary system to enter at the same time if every vessel moved to within half a kilometer of each other.

However, what was staggering about the scale of the construct to the onlookers was not simply its size but the fact that the entire project had only taken fifty years to complete and twenty five of those years had involved lobbying for permission to begin construction and the allocation of sufficient resources.

This was of course after several centuries of failure due to the Governing Council's justifiable stance that the Alliance wasn't yet ready for the challenge that such an endeavor would present and that there needed to be far more research into the safety of the technology.

Some had argued that in the first days of the Stargate program, widely credited for setting Earth on the path to the stars, the legendary Jack O'Neill the first and Daniel Jackson, subjects of many historical studies, hadn't even known if they would return once they stepped through the Stargate.

The point was made that at the time nobody working in the Stargate Program during it's activation in 1995 really knew for a fact that the artifact that they were about to use was really anything other than an elaborate execution device or a molecular blender. Those in favor of the Dimensional gateway used that fact to argue for more aggressive experimentation.

Those who were against research into the technology and favored caution, rebutted with the argument that most sentients in the Alliance had thankfully evolved past the stage of leaping without wondering just where they would land. They argued for smaller scale experiments and a timeline of ten Alliance Standard Years (one thousand Earth years).

HIGHCOM had been one of the parties in favor of this longer time line. It was perhaps because of Victor's own skepticism that he had been placed in charge of protecting the UFAS DSRV _Radek Zelenka_ that was directing the experiment.

Since the isolated Binary star system they would be using was situated 'close' in cosmological terms to the inhabited teritories of Free Jaffa Federation space, the majority of the UFAS vessels were under the FJF banner although the TFSF _Ajax_ was in nominal command.

The FJF Rak'sha had been tasked with a different mission from his own by HIGHCOM. If anything that came through the gate proved to be even remotely hostile the Executor class Ha'tak and its companion vessels would open fire and destroy anything coming through while the science teams worked to deactivate the gate.

"I only hope it works…" Victor thought moodily.

Captain Yaxley, perhaps picking up on his mood busied herself distributing hushed orders through her assistants with Telamon's aid. The AI that conversed with her had projected himself in ghost interaction mode, appearing as a faintly glowing, semitransparent image of an elderly twentieth century college professor.

A minute later Colonel Anezka Dvorak PhD commander of the _Radek Zelenka _signaled her readiness to begin.

It was a historical moment in more ways than one.

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**Terran Federation Space Binary Star System Symplegades, currently under the jurisdiction of the United federation of Allied Systems (UFAS), Restricted Zone**

**Time:** Day cycle – 0930 Terran Calendar 2773 CE, Alliance Calendar Year 7

**Location:** TFSF DSBS Prometheus, assigned to UFAS 33rd Monitor Fleet, Currently in Hyperspace

**Reading…**

**Warning File #4341 Corrupted**

**Warning File #4342 Corrupted**

**Warning File #4343 Corrupted**

**Warning File #5762 Corrupted**

**Warning File #0082 Unexpected End of File….**

**Warning Read Error… Rebooting…**

**Reading…**

**Cmmd. Log:** Entry no. 9987 UFAS Dr. Anezka Dvorak PhD, EngD, MEng, Col. TFSF, reg. no. 18054121

_**Warning, Black Book Entry, Contents may be censored by UFAS security directive #32-F and 45-A through J, violation of said directives punishable by a maximum sentence of life imprisonment at a level 4 confinement facility without the possibility of parole. **_

_**Warning, Black Box Entry, Fidelity of contents suspect due to damage to DSRV Radek Zelenka, Lost All Hands, Data Core 8.6% restored by OFI (UFAS Office of Fleet Intelligence) Division 2 Signals Intelligence. **_

**Loading…**

**Please Stand By…**

**The following is a record of the 666****th**** activation of the quantum gate during Project Symplegades as taken from the final mission record of Colonel Dr. Anezka Dvorak (**_**deceased**_**)** **TFSF Cmnd. DSRV (Deep Space Research Vessel) **_**Radek Zelenka**_**.**

The activation of the Dimensional gate was a beautiful ting to see. The two halves of the gate slowly moved together propelled by their gravimetric drive systems. Upon completion of the assembly the _Radek Zelenka _sent the activation codes to the gate. Wisps of star fire was drawn from the binary stars and danced around the ring before seeming to be absorbed by the gate. The activation of the device was obvious from the shimmering view of an alien field of red shifting light and nebulous clouds of gas that could be seen through the ring.

Data was forwarded from the enhanced targeting sensors of the Battlemoon Ossa to the _Radeck Zelenka_. In order to make the most of the brief, fifteen second activation window allowed by Colonel Stromner. The science vessel DSRC Radek Zelenka had taken the risky move of lowering its primary shield system in order to fully utilize its impressive sensor suite to the fullest potential.

HYLDAR (Hyper-light Direction and Ranging) passive scans, AEGISS (Active Emissions Gravimetric Interferometer Subspace Sensors) active sweeps, ARGUSA (Active Radiation Gravimetric Unidirectional Subspace Array) scans, remote drones deploying ARGOSA (Active Radiation Gravimetric Omnidirectional Subspace Array) scans, metallurgical, psychic, aural, tachyon, lidar even radar scans were utilized.

Although it was slightly unprofessional, Colonel Dvorak felt her heart swell with joy as Petra, the Radek Zelenka's AI began downloading the millions of exabytes of data into the quantum multi-phase computers that had been loaned to the UFAS Science Council by the Edenian League of Allied Worlds.

There was laughter and applause as nanosecond by nanosecond they learned something new and amazing about the strange universe before them.

She turned to her excited Serrakin xenobiologist, Dr. Iain Hobb and lightly commented. "Sentient beings throughout the Great Alliance are going to be celebrating this find for centuries."

The scientist turned his reptilian eyes to her and was about to answer when the great law of Murphy came into play.

The first indication TFSF colonel, Dr. Anezka Dvorak had that the situation was going spin ward for the DSRC _Radek Zelenka_ was when her psyhcogenic telemetry specialist Dr. Volgen assumed a fetal position and started muttering from the floor.

"P-power…beyond comprehension…hunger…hunger!"

He also pissed himself.

Things got worse from there...

It was the sensors that very nearly doomed the vessel more than its lack of a primary shield. The _Radek Zelenka_ was a converted Arbalest-class Frigate, now obsolete with the introduction of the new Veda-class Long Range Frigates fielded by the TFSF MILCOM, the Arbalest class frigates found a second life due to their interchangeable, modular design. By swapping out weapons emplacements for science modules the entire fleet of vessels was handed over to the UFAS Science Council and Survey Division as mobile laboratories and ranged exploration vessels mapping the unknown space beyond the Stargate system in the unexplored territories of the Inhabited Galaxies.

The long range research craft was a half the size of the _Ajax_ measuring little more than 350 meters in length and one hundred and seventy meters in width. Its hull was covered in sensors using the O'Neill/Carter integrated CSS system and the craft was unarmed save for two lateral launch silo's capable of carrying up to twenty Terran designed variable payload drones used in its second life more often for research than actual combat.

The telemetry officer was an Edenian and had been in charge of directing the psychic and aural scans. He was among the first to fall under the thrall of the invader's signal being received by the sensors. The weapons control officers on several Jaffa ships including the one aboard the Ha'tak Ka'lel had also fallen under the influence of a hostile mind and had fired upon and the Rak'sha before he was wrestled to the deck by his commander.

Colonel Stromner's voice could be heard over the PA system. "Report! Anna report! What the hell is going on?!"

The space around the opened gate lit up with weapons fire from half of the FJF all directed at the _Radek Zelenka_.The FJF Freedom an older, upgraded pyramidal Ha'tak that once belonged to the System Lord Nirrti, moved in to provide cover along with the _Ajax_ while the other ships traded fire with the enthralled.

The primarily Galaran crewed MRBD (Mid-Range Battle Destroyer)_Noble_ and the mixed crew of the MRBD _Honor_, two of twelve _Vili_-class destroyers assigned to the fleet, were performing interception duties against rogue death gliders targeting the _Zelenka_ when it was struck multiple times along the lateral profile of its shield by a plasma beam from a rogue Ha'tak. The destroyer's primary shields failed after the third hit but the eighty year old CSS hull system kept out the nuclear fire, although there was severe structural damage from the stresses of the kinetic impact and secondary energy discharges.

The Optrican/Terran crew DSBC _Anathema_ attempted to draw fire away from the destroyer which was attempting to perform an emergency hyper-light jump in order to escape to the safety of an extra-solar fleet tender. Tragically, a rogue death glider powered through the hole in the Destroyer's anti-fighter cover and impacted at maximum sub-light fighter velocity on _Noble_ just as she jumped out.

The last image that Anezka had of _Noble_ was an expanding ball of flame, lightning and twisted metal that vanished in a small distortion of space-time with a flash. Distraught, she didn't apologize for kicking her crazed defense screens officer out of the way and undoing the damage caused by the man in order to raise the ship's primary shield system. The battlemoon Ossa and a group of four of Ha'taks were engaged in a pitched battle. There was a blinding flash and the Zelenka's radar and AE/AR (Active Emission/Active Radiation) systems were filled with static when Ossa fired her ultra-high energy, gravity assisted particle/antiparticle array.

For twenty seconds the displays blacked out as sensors either overloaded or shutdown in order to preserve themselves. After the CSS system cycled the optical hyper-light sensors, the awesome power of the Ossa's main weapon could be seen in the afterimage of the beam path burned into the imaging medium of several receivers. Floating dead in space were the four Ha'taks with their weapons emplacement's destroyed, their hulls charred, glowing and highly radioactive.

The AE/AR sensors regenerated after forty seconds of inactivity. The radar system remained offline… As did the Zalenka's subspace uplink to the dimensional gate.

"_Uh oh!"_

Colonel Dvorak anxiously attempted to restore the connection as her stricken crew began to slowly recover from what ever had happened. Damage control and medical response alarms were screaming for the attention of dazed and disoriented officers. Hobbs fortunately seemed unaffected by mysterious bout of madness that afflicted a quarter of her crew and aided her by manning a station. A radiological alarm went of as someone tried to sabotage an experiment in one of the labs. Petra closed off the lab and flooded the section with quickly generated radiation nano-scrubbers.

Frustrated at her failure to restore the uplink she snapped harshly as Petra attempted to gain he attention.

"What!" Anezka snarled.

Unperturbed Petra brought up an image of a subspace energy wave form. "I believe that I have isolated the cause of this disturbance captain, with your permission I will attempt to jam i-"

Anezka didn't hesitate.

"Do it!"

As if a switch was thrown on board the Zelenka maddened crewmembers fell to their knees in pain, some losing consciousness, others regaining their senses. The effect were slower to take effect outside the ship and ineffective in the vessels furthest from the Zelenka but the Ajax AI picked up the data packet sent by Petra and quickly began transmitting a jamming signal of its own along the low subspace energy band.

It seemed like the battle was over.

Then they came…

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**Terran Federation Space en route to Binary Star System Symplegades, currently under the jurisdiction of the United federation of Allied Systems (UFAS), Restricted Zone**

**Time:** Day Cycle - 1000 Terran Calendar 2773 CE, Alliance Calendar Year 7

**Location:** TFSF DSBS (Deep Space Battleship) Prometheus, assigned to UFAS 33rd Monitor Fleet, Currently in Hyperspace

**Reading…**

**Cmmd. Log:** Entry no. 212 UFAS Zhu Shuang-tan MEng. Col. TFSF, reg. no. 27124112

_**Warning, Black Book Entry, Contents may be censored by UFAS security directive #32-F and 45-A through J violation of said directives punishable by life imprisonment at a level 4 confinement facility without the possibility of parole. **_

**The following is a record of the 666****th**** activation of the quantum gate during Project Symplegades as taken from the mission record of Colonel Zhu Shuang-tan (promoted to Brigadier General) TFSF Cmnd. Langaran Battlemoon **_**Ossa**_**.**

He wished he was home.

In this case home was not Colonel Zhu's birthplace, the Terran Federation member world of Fanyang. Settled by the People's Republic of China, now the highly successful Chinese Federation, during the first heady days of Earth's extrasolar territorial expansion Fanyang was a TFSF academy world, dedicated to raising and providing a first-class education to the children of the far flung personnel of the TFSF. It was a place of fond memories for Zhu but it wasn't **home.**

**Home** was the DSBC (Deep Space Battlecruiser) _Guangxi _currently in the care of his second in command Captain Huang Pei and the Terran AI Judith. Unfortunately Zhu had been ordered to take command of the Battlemoon _Ossa_ for the duration of the 'great experiment'.

He hated every minute of the experience.

He was seated on a blocky control chair, in a cramped control room, surrounded by several hundred meters of lead, trinium-coated titanium armor, Hydrogen storage tanks; Water reservoirs and numerous anti-radiation force-fields. Zhu desperately tried to act as if he wasn't bothered by the fact that there were eight massive and extremely temperamental mutual annihilation reactors within a brisk jog of his control centre.

It was an act that would have been much easier if, after a hurried conference with one of the engineers, his medical officer hadn't abruptly and urgently insisted that everyone up their dosages of tamoxifentanol, an anti-radiation medicine that had been issued to the crew and technicians working aboard _Ossa_.

"Signal the _Ajax_ that we are ready to go any time that _Zelenka_ is." He ordered the Re'ol communications officer.

"_Ajax_ has received and acknowledged our transmission." The androdioecious control officer informed him. "The _Radek Zelenka_ is transmitting the activation signal." He/She added a second later.

"Make sure we get as much as possible." Zhu told watch-standers at the expanded sensor station. "I don't want to hear those eggheads over at the Zelenka complaining over any aborted scans."

For a few minutes the situation was boringly normal; then, a small alarm went off in the dim control room.

Zhu stiffened in his chair. "What was that?!" he demanded.

"FJF Ha'tak Glory of Senecon has locked on to us with their main weapon!" A sensor operator hurriedly informed the colonel.

"What! Hail them! Increase power to the targeted hemisphere!" Zhu bit out tersely.

"I'm getting no response, Senecon is ignoring our hails!" The communication officer responded.

"Sir, the FJF Ha'taks Wise Wanderer, Warrior of Sands and Du'ran Risen are moving in on attack vertor- Senecon is firing!!" The Sensor operator paled in shock as he relayed the information from his station.

"Activate shields and gravitic defense fields, interception fire only! Get me the _Ajax_!" Zhu ordered with a forced calm.

"Colonel, Major Hussein from the marine detachment is reporting that a tech in Segment 5A started a disturbance." The Security officer frowned. "Fights are breaking out in Sections 5A-K, no explanation as to the cause."

Zhu frowned pensively, those were all areas beyond the core force-fields, beyond Section 5K was the shielded personnel section where the Marines were stationed. For a moment he was at a loss, and blankly asked.

"Who is fighting who?"

"The techs sir, the techs working in those sections are fighting each other." The security officer replied.

"Sir, we have the _Ajax _on the line!" Communications informed Zhu.

The Colonel watched as the face of Symplegades Taskforce Commander Colonel Victor Stromner was projected onto his command chair's monitor.

"Zhu, are you still with us?" The older man asked.

"Yes sir." Zhu replied. "What's going on?"

"Telamon informs me that there is some sort of signal emanating from the gate, I tried to get through to the Zlenka but communications are down. Our multi-spectrum shields seem to be able to keep it out but the FJF ships aren't quite so lucky, especially the older ones." Col. Stromner stated grimly.

Zhu swallowed. "So it's an attack then." He stated more than asked.

Stromner nodded. "At the moment we estimate that the majority of the crews aboard the attacking vessels are attempting to retake control of the rogue ships. But for the moment only the FJF Rak'sha and the FJF Ka'lel seem to be under Alliance control, the other seven Ha'taks and the majority of the fighter craft out there are to be considered rogue hostiles."

Colonel Stromner shifted in his seat as the Ajax took fire from a flight of death gliders that turned about, vectoring for an attack on _Ajax_'s ventral surface. A silent command from a weapons control officer, gave Telamon weapons release authority for the ventral interceptor weapons grid.

As the fighters closed on the _Ajax_, the CSS hull system tracked the incoming bogeys and it formed several dimples on the ship's ventral surface, in the optimum firing locations. The weapon's grid materialized several quadruple bore, rapid-fire ion repeaters mounted in a spherical housing that floated within the hemispherical depressions in the hull on manipulated bosonic force-fields.

Each of these weapons was a miniaturized version of the now obsolete Tollan Ion cannon. Though generally useless as an anti-capital ship weapon, by increasing the firing rate of each bore to a mere 600 rounds per minute, updating the tracking and acquisition programs while maintaining its original energy output, these weapons became excellent anti-fighter weapons.

Each bore was capable of tracking fighters within its firing envelope both separately and in concert. Each bore fired at 10 rounds a second releasing forty rounds per turret per second. In the thirty seconds that it took the Ak'ran-class death gliders to enter their fifty thousand kilometer weapons engagement range, the fifty turrets spread across the Ajax's hull had already answered with sixty thousand bolts of charged particles and ionizing radiation.

The twelve fighters were bracketed with convergent fire and had their shields battered down in seconds. The crazed pilots continued on, screaming incoherently even as the second salvo blasted them into balls of radioactive fire and cooling gas that were dissipated by the navigational deflectors before they even came close to touching the _Ajax_'s defensive shields.

Stromner met Zhu's eyes seriously. "If possible disable the rogue ships and give the Jaffa on board a fighting chance. This is likely a prelude to an attack through the gate."

Zhu nodded with the unspoken knowledge that he would have to kill allies if the fighting endangered the lives under his command. "I understand sir."

Turning from the deactivated monitor, Zhu faced his weapons officer. "What is the status of those Ha'tak that were firing on us?" He asked.

The woman replied promptly. "Sir, we've destroyed _Wise Wanderer's_ main plasma cannon and _Glory of Senecon_ has lost sublight propulsion but _Du'ran Risen_ and _Warrior of Sands _are towing it into position to fire on the Array."

Zhu thought for a moment, and then he came to a decision.

"Tell the Marines that they have six minutes to get everyone that they can inside of the Core shield. Lock any troublemakers in the crew cabins and stun anyone who resists." He ordered the Security officer. Turning to the watch stander at weapons control he issued the following orders. "Set the Grav-lens to minimal power, maximum diffusion and put those Ha'tak square in the field of fire!"

The Pangaran's eyes widened. "That'll-"

"Burn off the shield and weapons emplacements if we do it right. There are allies aboard that ship that I don't want to have to kill." Zhu finished for the startled man who nodded and began briskly entering the necessary commands.

For six minutes the clock counted down as the Ha'tak struggled under the Ossa's counter-fire to destroy the batlemoon's main weapon. The crater had its own smaller shield dome in addition to the Grav-lens that deflected fire away from the crater.

While the Ha'tak's had stronger shields and had clustered together so that only one hemisphere at a time could bring weapons to bear, Colonel Zhu countered by rotating the Ossa on it's horizontal axis relative to the system plane, moving the Array out of the line of fire and placing the Ha'taks into the field of fresh weapons.

After six minutes of playing cat and mouse, Zhu watched as the rogue ships again moved into the Array's firing solution which was directed away from the rest of the fleet, especially the weakly shielded death gliders.

He gave the order.

There is no noise in space, within the Battlemoon control core, there was a feeling of tension for a few seconds as the Storage rings shunted half of their payload into the terminal booster ring and the radiation detector whined as the Array discharged. If Zhu had stood upon the surface of the battlemoon wearing a s'isor to protect his eyes, in the millisecond before he was fatally dosed with radiation and baked into the hull, he would have seen the particle/anti-particle discharge disperse and shine upon the four Ha'taks like a titanic searchlight reaching out into space.

The _Ossa_ was already aiming at the Gateway when the first of the invaders came through.

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**Terran Federation Space Binary Star System Symplegades, currently under the jurisdiction of the United federation of Allied Systems (UFAS), Restricted Zone**

**Time:** Day Cycle - 1030 Terran Calendar 2773 CE, Alliance Calendar Year 7

**Location:** TFSF DSBS Prometheus, assigned to UFAS 33rd Monitor Fleet. Currently in Symplegades System.

**Cmmd. Log:** Entry no. 6312 UFAS Melinda Moran MEng. Archon, HSC reg. no. 33185752

The human female sitting in the virtual chair was the only other person, aside from the Fleet Commander, General Simone De Salle TFSF, to be physically present in the sealed conference room onboard the DSBS Prometheus, flagship of the TFSF fleet.

The General was an ash blond woman who looked far younger than her actual age of 366 earth years. Through somatic treatments and nanobiotic gene restoration the senescence of a human body could be temporarily suspended and in some cases even reversed. Although actual physical immortality was beyond the scope of medical technology and many of the more advanced species in the Alliance did not seek it, preferring instead to ascend. The Great Alliance did have the medical technology to greatly extend the lifespan of most beings by hundreds if not thousands of years.

In General De Salle's case she was one quarter Edenian and had inherited her grandmother's longevity which, in addition to the normal medical treatments offered freely to those who serve the Alliance, allowed her to have the appearance of a fresh and healthy twenty-five year old.

"There you have it people, that's what we're getting into." General De Salle remarked.

Melinder ran a hand through her short black hair as she and her fellow commanders absorbed the information from the immersive environment constructed from the logs of commanders long ago.

The Zelenka's sensor logs would later reveal in detail the existence of mental patterns being broadcast to all ships in the fleet. Using the lens effect of hyperspace on subspace carrier waves the extra-dimensional beings were able to magnify the power of their psychic weapon's tachyon emissions. Since the shields of the DSBC _Ajax_ had been fully activated from the moment that the gate had been opened it had thus proven immune to the influence of the carrier weapon.

The enemy's main assault craft, called Caldera ships by OFI analysts was roughly twice the size of a battlemoon and mounted a massive, volcano shaped (and sized) plasma cannon that unleashed diffuse gouts of plasma and radioactive material from the alien's titanic ships. The task force had managed to destroy several of the vessels before Ajax was forced to evacuate the Ossa. The battlemoon was sacrificed in order to stop the invader's dreadnaught vessel, a spheroid craft 12,800 kilometers in diameter, from passing into their universe.

It had been like a fly trying to stop a truck.

In the end, the _Radek Zelenka_ was destroyed when Colonel Dvorak heroically brought her vessel within close enough range to launch a stellar probe on a collision course with the emergency stop that was hardwired into the gate. The first three hundred kilometers of the dreadnaught was sheared off when the gate deactivated and separated into its components. In the process the _Zelenka_ and her escort came under fire and were destroyed.

The DSBC _Guangxi _was destroyed along with the FJF _Rak'sha,_ the _Vili_-class mid-range destroyers _Hellenic_, _Kotaka_, _Swift_, _Havok, Noble_ and _Bainbridge _along with the_ Veda_-class Frigates _Heligo _and _Chandra_. Among the dead were close to five thousand beings including Captain Huang Pei and the Terran AI Judith who perished, but not before buying time for the _Radek Zalenka_ to deactivate the gate before the science vessel was in turn destroyed.

The Alliance forces had very nearly been forced to retreat from Symplegades System, leaving the gate in enemy hands. Fortunately this was not to be as the ELAW Contractor Ship _Lapsed Apathy,_ picked up the emergency hails for the _Radek Zelenka_ and responded under the command of Elysian Mediator Arielle Acoxochitl Anacoana Acolhnahuacatzin-Tonks Lupin and her XO Sebastian PSL Guan Yin.

The Nemesis-class vessel was responsible for destroying twenty-eight of the twenty-nine remaining Caldera ships during the engagement and aiding in the disposal of the super dreadnaught segment left floating ominously in space.

In the end the data gained from that final test had allowed the Terran Federation to discover the key to an infinite number of divergent realities devoid of life. And a few that held life forms that greatly interested Alliance scientists especially those interested in resurrecting the Asgard genome and those wishing to create a working zero point energy extractor.

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on one's point of view, The Alliance Governing Council had instituted a general ban on all large scale experiments into accessing quantum realities for a period no less than two Standard Alliance years (200 earth years). At which time the Alliance Science Council would be allowed to make recommendations into whether or not it was time for the Alliance to try Project Symplegades again.

It was time.

"We had best get ready." General De Salle stated. "Dismissed!"

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**Battlecraft Profile:** Argonaut Class Deep Space Battle Cruiser

**Length:** 712 meters

**Width:** 344 meters at propulsion block

**Height:** 215 meters

**Offensive/Defensive Weapons:**three hundred type one combat drones, two hundred type two variable payload drones, one caesim beam projector, two Tollan ion beam projectors, six antiproton enriched plasma beam cannons, 16 exotic particle emmiters, quantum teleportation array, Tollan ion cannon weapons array, weapon materialization grid.

**Defense Systems:** Asgard based shielding using partial application of the Mackay Alteran shield upgrade algorithm. O'Neill/Carter Crystal Shield and Sensor System using partial application of Mckay algorithm. Gravimetric force deflectors, Energy and Inertial dampening field generators.

**Armour:**Trinium-Carbon-Naquadah-Iridium hull one meter thick and energized utilizing the regenerative properties of the O'Neill/Carter CSS, Neutronium-trinum-titanium space frame.

**Engines:**Asgard hyper-drive systems utilizing Carter-Mckay Ancient hyper-drive engine upgrades. Carter-Hailey Neutrino Ion sub-light engines powered by one zero point energy module. Gravimetric maneuvering projectors, utilizing EID generators to manipulate inertial vectors for fine maneuvering control.

**Notes:** Terran Federation Capital Military Spacecraft. Possesses artificial gravity, inertial dampening systems, energy dampening systems, localized force field technology, matter-energy transportation technology, matter replication technology, holographic systems, neural interfaces, nanotechnology repair systems, limited phase technology.

While these vessels are capable of being equipped with phase cloaking technology, such upgrades are currently prioritized for the Office of Fleet Intelligence and as of 2431 T.C.E.

Further not on various fleet designations. Each member of the Alliance may join as an individual entity, organization or star system(s) provided that said body represents the greater majority of the member's population, employees, family etc. For example TTFSF, HSC, ELAW, LMW, FJF are all representatives of various such entities.

Battle Cruisers sacrifice carrier capacity and armor for weapons emplacement on par with a Battleship. In addition to its ZedPM and Neutrino Ion Generators, these vessels are equipped with a twelve compact antimatter-naquadriah generators six of which are on standby while the rest power tertiary systems. These craft also posses a secondary CIC/CDC for Fleet co-ordination.

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**The first time that I tried writing this there were so many ideas that everything just gushed out in total defiance of my attempts to record my thoughts in some semblance of order. I confess to being inspired in part by the other Stargate stories that I've read although in truth it was not my intention to simply copy and paste someone else's work and most of the similarities are just me grasping subconsciously for what felt apt. This is my second attempt at the Willed Future which will be taken down when I've gotten to the point in the plot that I've currently planned. Hopefully things will be more coherent. TTFN. **


	2. Chapter 2

**This story is a work of fanfiction and any similarities to the characters of any television, film or literary work is completely intentional. The author does not in any way shape or form profit from the following work nor claims any responsibility for the efforts of others. Said author acknowledges that they simply weren't cool enough to think of something like this on their own. The following story is a fanfiction cross over. **

**Untoward Truth**

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"_On the topic of the Terran Federation, in its early years, no, to speak of the Terran Federation one must begin not with Earth Union, not the International Oversight Advisory, no, to speak of the Terran Federation one must begin with the most pivotal of all discoveries made by the human race on Earth. I refer of course, to the discovery of the first of Earth's 'Gateways to Heaven' in Giza and the series of events that eventually lead to the controversial secret program that started in Basement 21 of the North American Defense Command, NORAD. Yes, dear reader I speak of the Stargate Program."_

**-Robert K. Woolsey, excerpt from **_**The Memoirs of a President**_**. **

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**Terra Sanctum 2050**

"**What Did You Do?!! WHAT DID YOU DO?!! WWWwhat DIIiiiDddd YOuuuuu DooooOOoo?!**!**"**

The confrontation occurred in a floating promenade, hovering high above a tremendous coliseum capped by an equally enormous and spectacular blue crystal dome that filtered and split the sunlight into a dazzling array of colors which was used by the architects of Terra Sanctum to create the illusion of vast pillars, arches of light and other eye catching pieces of luminous architecture.

"What did you do?!!!"

A small group of men and women stood in the center of the garden-like promenade, some of these people were armed with weapons, devices generally forbidden in Sanctum, all surrounding two men, one woman and the blackened, smoldering ruin of a metal chest.

One of the men was a thin, tall, tanned human male of Mediterranean descent with steel grey threads in his otherwise strong and healthy crop of styled black hair, mustache and beard. He had a face that was creased with care-lines and in any other situation would have come off as someone's kind and caring uncle, a jovial figure to be trusted and respected, ideal for a politician or a used car salesman.

Currently however, when combined with the thick throbbing vein on the side of his head and reddened eyes, this irate individual seemed more like the raving lunatic that he currently was.

The woman was attractive, of indeterminate age with long black hair and bangs colored pure white. She was dressed in a black faux-leather pantsuit which was covered by a black frock-coat that split open at her waist to reveal her long, slim, leather-clad legs. This woman was currently looking with great concern and slowly dawning horror at the other man who was currently being questioned.

This man was shorter, with graying brown hair, a weather-worn face and other than his slightly athletic build, could have passed for a stereotypical twentieth century college professor with his black glasses and Harris Tweed suit. He currently had a slightly dazed expression on his face despite being so aggressively questioned.

_**This of course, could be easily explained by the slightly smoking, hole the size of a Pre-unification American quarter that was burned straight though his upper torso. **_

To be fair it seemed as though the dazed man, Dr. Daniel Jackson, Vice-President of the Terran Federation and Ambassador to the Eden League of Allied Worlds and Protectorates, actually wanted to answer. He gulped audibly, wiped away the thin trail of blood that had leaked from the corner of his mouth and raised a finger as if to make a momentous announcement.

The woman, Vala Mal Doran cautiously moved closer to Dr. Jackson as a few individuals from the crowd edged cautiously behind the other man. The primary reason for this caution was the fact that the screaming man was holding a thin, slim, dangerous-looking weapon that could most aptly be described as an elegant, hand-cannon.

Fortunately the man's attention was solely upon Dr. Jackson whose momentous announcement was…

"Ah!"

Even Dr. Jackson seemed confused.

Who wouldn't be, _"Ah?!" _Thought the assembled personages.

The screaming man stopped for a moment and repeated what everyone was thinking. "Ah?"

The he looked at the smoking hole, seeing clear through, the light over the horizon.

_"Oh! Ask question, wait for answer **then** shoot!"_ Sheepishly he shrugged and blurted out.

"Sorry."

People stared.

In his mind Dr. Jackson had been prepared to exchange a few witty yet scathing remarks with his nemesis before proudly explaining how he had thwarted the man's nefarious designs.

Unfortunately all that came out was…'Ah!'

It should be explained that currently there was a blackened, burning hole in Dr. Jackson's left lung and that he should have been quite pleased that he was still standing, let alone capable of monosyllabic responses to the queries of a villain. The burns had actually cauterized the flesh surrounding the wound in his chest which was why the damaged brachial artery wasn't currently spurting his life-blood all over the faux-marble floor beneath his feet.

"_Still,"_ Dr. Jackson fretted. _"Was that really the best that I can do? 'Ah!' Really?" _

It should be noted that this was not, by far, the first time that Dr. Jackson had ever been shot. He'd actually lost track of the number of that he'd been shot at, let alone hit. That probably said something rather unflattering about his lifestyle. As an archeologist, linguist and amateur anthropologist he really should have been living a nice, relaxing, boring life, filled with things only people in his chosen field of study would have ever find interesting.

Ever.

Other than a thirty minute short on the Discovery Channel with five minutes of that time advertising swimsuit models and their efforts to protect endangered sharks that swim right on by without taking even a single exploratory a bite.

Just a little.

Just to see how she tastes.

Instead here he was, a real life Indiana Jones, there was actually a semi-biographical mini-series on the Galaxy Wide Web that attempted to sensationalize the more exiting events of his life. At the show's producer's last count there were 52 billion viewers across twenty three planets, it was surprisingly popular, though professionally and personally mortifying.

Archeologists don't really like being compared to Indiana Jones unless they actually getting paid thousands of dollars for doing so.

Digging up rocks is an expensive hobby.

Daniel's mind wandered back to where his body currently was only to find that he was absent-mindedly fingering the smoking hole in his chest under Vala's incredulous gaze. He pulled his hand away in dismay and gave himself the purely mental equivalent of slapping his forehead an yelling 'Du'oh!'. He could not however, stop himself from breathing in short sharp gasps, nor prevent the subtle lethargy that was slowly overtaking his conscious mind.

"_I must be in shock."_ He thought.

It was a strangely disappointing thought.

He'd had his chest cavity blown open by a staff blast, he'd been tortured by a Goa'uld hand device more times than he could remember (_most likely due to the resulting brain damage_), he'd been shot in the back by a plasma burst, he'd had his constituent atoms pushed almost to the point of phase dissipation by a zat'n'ktel multiple times, he'd been fatally irradiated, pierced in the neck by an arrow, a poison dart, shrapnel, a bit of clay pottery, he'd been exposed to hard vacuum...

Hell, he'd even lost count of the number of times that he'd died, though he was almost certain that the number was somewhere around five or six times.

_Conservatively,_

All in all, the point was, compared to all of that, having a neat little hole burned though his body was well to be frank, so, **plain** that he would have chuckled if only his body could have spared the air.

He'd just made up his mind to have another go at answering his nemesis when he realized that his vision was slightly blurred. There was a dark blob at the upper left corner of his sight and then his glasses were placed on his face again.

With a start he realized that he was now lying on his back with his head in Vala's lap. His common-law wife was saying something but at the moment all, that he could think was…

"_I must be in shock."_ There was a slight feeling of déjà vu but he ignored it.

_That was probably a bad sign._

A drop of wetness trickled down one cheek and he realized that Vala was, uncharacteristically, crying in public. Deciding to mollify her, he focused on reading her lips since his hearing seemed spotty.

"You can't die!" She was saying, "It'll be another three months till I'm recognized as your beneficiary!"

"_Ah Vala…"_

He was not outraged by what she was saying, she often used dry humor to goad him into doing the things that she wanted him to do, if only just to spite her, like shaving his beard, taking up the Vice-Presidency of the Federation, a largely ceremonial role, or at the moment, _staying alive_.

He couldn't fault her well meant efforts even though she was…

_**Stealing his grandfather's heirloom, solid gold pocket-watch off his not-yet-dead body!!!!**_

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Daniel understood that Vala sometimes backslid into kleptomania whenever she was extremely anxious. Never mind the sentimental value of a watch passed down from father to son that had been through three world wars and a goblin rebellion. He tried to say something comforting, discarded the first two comments as inappropriate and then his mind latched onto the perfect, monosyllabic word that would appropriately convey all that he was feeling to her in a way that wouldn't ever be misunderstood.

Ever!

Daniel shuddered, gasped and then with visible effort groaned…

**_"Bitch."_**

He wanted to way more, Vala deserved much, much more but there was a curious darkness at the edges of his vision and he could hear his medical implant making frantic wails through cyberspace. It was probably saying the electronic equivalent of 'Heart rate critical!' 'Cells depleted of oxygen to dangerous levels!' 'Dangerous build up of lactic acid in thighs, buttocks, cheeks, ventricles and abdominal muscles!' 'Analysis, thirty percent probability- Intense Sexual Orgasm, 2 percent probability- Sleep Apnea, sixty-seven percent probability- Imminent Death, zero point oh, oh, oh, oh, oh five percent probability- Atrophic Vaginitis…

Out of some instinct, hidden in a walled off corner of his mind until needed, he centered himself and opened his mind just… _so_.

Staring at the sky above helped as little by little he surrendered his worldly constraints as he looked into the brilliant light high above him that seemed to grow brighter and brighter.

Until…

There was a sea of voices, all talking to one another. The things that they discussed varied from something as mundane as the opening of a flower to concepts so far out of his still mortal frame of view that all that he knew was that even a single half-overheard (not _**understood **mind you_) word could alter the fate of the inhabited Galaxies.

For example, '_Yrxllse Avis Fexis_' three words upon which hinged the fate of a galaxy.

_Not ours though._

_Ours was 'Eriw Der Eht Sti' _

His mind began to expand into a vast sea of existence, a universe beyond the mortal plane where he could see both without himself and within, and he asked…

"_Am I, going to die?"_

The torrent of voiced stilled into a single trickle of words spoken with a dry, sarcastic humor that seemed to descend from some unimaginable height. And when they finally came down to Daniel, he heard the strangely familiar voice say…

_**((YES, YOU ARE….)) **_

Sometimes the most momentous of occasions could be spoiled by a single unintentional gaffe. In this case Daniel's dignified and wise response escaped his mind and all that he said was.

"Urk."

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"_We began our endeavor out of the desire to explore the unknown, what we found awed us, frightened us. We did what we could to secure the safety of planet Earth. Ra was dead, the Abydos gate was buried, and we thought ourselves safe… We were wrong."_

**-Col. Samantha Carter PhD. on **_**The Julia Donovan Show!**_

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**Earth, Basement 20, a corridor leading past elevator 3, NORAD, December 2009 **

The two men strolled down the corridor past various airmen carrying out their tasks.

"I know I was the one who found it, I'm not entirely happy with the fact that we were forced to use it either but I think that it was better than the alternative…" The younger man, Daniel Jackson, spoke with rapid urgency.

"No one disagrees with you." The older man, General Hank Landry responded.

"But it is a very dangerous piece of technology to keep lying around." Daniel pressed, trying hard to get his point across.

"It's out of my hands Dr. Jackson." General Landry answered as he walked up to the elevator.

Daniel tried a different tack, "Okay, let's say someone does figure out how to reprogram it, or worse let's say it falls into the wrong hands, it could be the most powerful weapon that we've ever come across!"

"I'm well aware of the risk…" Landry blandly answered as he called for the elevator. "So is the IOA." He added sarcastically as Dr. Jackson rolled his eyes. "For now," He continued. "The Ark s being studied at Area 51, that's all I know." He paused for a moment as the elevator doors opened. "I'm sorry Dr. Jackson… I've done all I can do."

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"_It was always the intention of the members of the International Oversight Advisory to make the reality of the Stargate Program and Earth's position in the wider Galaxy publicly known. This was in fact a common reaction of each of the administrations that found themselves confronted with knowledge of the Stargate Program and the later IOA Fleet and Atlantis expeditions. No one would like to be told that their country was currently fighting a secret war for survival against a series of massively powerful enemies and that their servicemen and most brilliant scientists had been fighting and dying for a little over three decades! _

_The military argued that the world was not yet ready for such a revelation and after much debate the nations involved reluctantly agreed to maintain secrecy for as long as plausibly possible and necessary. We tried to prepare for when the truth got out, meeting secretly with other world leaders and dropping hints, bringing in industry leaders and key members of the media, religious leaders, scientists, putting in place all of the necessary protection organizations to deal with the expected backlash, some politicians preemptively resigned in order to avoid what was coming while others doggedly stayed on. _

_People had grown much more flexible in their thinking over the years as the IOA had gradually begun to introduce new technologies to the world, slowly building each generation's tolerance for the fantastic. This greatly encouraged the IOA and at the height of peace, both on Earth and in the larger Galaxy, disclosure happened._

_On January the 5__th__, 2025 Americans awoke to a much anticipated address from President Monica Gonzales, hours before, Secretary of State Claudia Singh had officially addressed the United Nations Security Council in a closed session and afterwards, by unanimous vote a special session of the United Nations General Assembly was convened. _

_After that, within the next few days leaders worldwide were making announcements and official statements as to their nation's response to the information revealed. A veritable army of public relations officials, employed by the IOA in anticipation of the event went to work around the world alongside the various informed media houses and civil agencies. _

_We disseminated the information as best we could in order to prevent the wide spread panic and disorder so feared by the military. The guard forces in various countries were on alert. We thought we were prepared. We thought that in the worse case scenario, some of our number may have been in need of new employment, or immunity from prosecution._

_It was glaringly obvious, after the first two formal declarations of war highlighted with their corresponding nuclear detonations, that __**that**__ was **wishful, thinking**."_

**-Robert Woolsey, excerpt from **_**Painful Revelations, The Briefest World War**_.

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**Earth, Minnesota 2049**

The old man rowed the boat back toward the shores of the lake. The boat cut slowly but surely through the slightly murky water on its way to the dock. The old man breathed deeply and evenly as he rowed. Pulling the oars in, he allowed the boat to coast on its own momentum for a few more seconds before stopping. With swift practice he tied off the boat to the dock.

In truth, the man that climbed onto the pier didn't seem to be that old. In spite of his steel grey hair turning white and lined face, there was a certain fluidity of movement, the easy grace of a much younger man at odds with the careful, calculated movement of a person familiar with the limits of his body imposed by advancing age, and the painful consequences of surpassing them.

It was evident in the was he lifted the heavy, fish laden cooler that this particular man was still in good health and going strong despite his apparent age of 60.

In truth, Colonel General Jonathan J. O'Neill (retired) was actually closer to one hundred years of age than his apparent age of a mere '60' years. In these times, somatic treatments were still expensive, costing as much as a garden city penthouse, and of those treatments were of limited use to those already of advanced age when the treatment first began.

Tretonin, widely touted as the penicillin of the twenty-first century still held many drawbacks due to its complicated manufacturing process and the temporary effect of the drug in the case of some types of chronic disorders.

Though progress had been made in improving the original formula and mass-producing an artificially created version of the drug rather than use immature Goa'uld symbiotes to make the substance, the production levels and stockpiles were still low enough to restrict usage to a long list of priority patients and critically ill world-wide.

If O'Neill was asked to reveal just what maintained his health, strength, and longevity, he would say that the answer lay in an unfortunate, at the time, judgment call that involved drinking some rather intoxicating prune juice and getting laid with; and apparently married to, a local village girl on a far away planet called Argos.

He had also contracted the most interesting of venereal diseases.

Always use protection kids…

_Those alien babes_…

To be precise, what he had contracted wasn't so much a STD, though it was most definitely ST, as it was a school of self-assembling, macromolecules or nanocytes, programmed by the Goa'uld Pelops to accelerate the aging of a group of primitive villagers. Pelops had designed an experiment using growth accelerating nanocytes on the ancient Greek descendants living on Argos in an attempt to advance the evolution of humans so as to create a hok'tur or advanced human, the Holy Grail for Goa'uld seeking powerful hosts.

For as far back as 2010, the IOA and Area 51 scientists had been attempting to reverse engineer a reliable batch of nanocytes for use in both military and civilian applications, including the treatment of inoperable cancers and other illnesses as well as industrial construction and automated repair systems. The problem was that both the software programming and the hardware used in most examples of nanotechnology were advanced to the point that the nanites would not function without at least a bare minimum of commands and at that bare minimum there was the risk that the nanites would evolve or mutate into an uncontrollable form.

Some enterprising scientist had eventually hit upon the idea of examining the dormant nanocytes in the blood or O'Neill and the Argosians. This had come after a routine medical check using copies of the Alteran diagnostic devices discovered on Atlantis had revealed something incredible about the nanites in the General's blood…

Jack hefted the cooler onto one shoulder and carried his fishing rod in another, along with the bait and tackle box. The small lake behind him had once been a small and murky pond, utterly devoid of fish. His home and beloved pond had been destroyed by a falling piece of rogue debris after a battle in orbit late '99. As a favor earth's allies had helped repair the damage and had actually made the pond deeper than before, inadvertently intersecting with an underground aquifer, resulting of in the flooding of his nice little pond and the reconstruction of his cabin on the shores of a small lake.

He called it Lake Bob.

To add insult to injury, a school of fish had turned a shallow part of Lake Bob into their annual spawning pool.

It was like being a grandfather, sorta.

Not really.

At least the bears made life interesting.

He walked with a slight spring in his step up the short wooded path that lead to his cabin. Breathing in the crisp, cold, evening air as he walked dappled by the light of the evening sun filtered through the trees, Jack O'Neill regretted not a thing.

The medical examination and the ensuing tests by military research and development personnel headed by Drs. Bill Lee PhD and Joan Walker MD revealed that although dormant, the nanites in O'Neill's blood had absorbed and retained minute amounts of mitochondrial energy, most likely gained from one of Jack's stints in a sarcophagus after the Argos mission, and that these nanites were slowly releasing the energy back into the General's body at a rate that resulted in Jack's somatic aging being halted at 60.

The team of scientists had further more discovered, using the more advanced Alteran medical imaging, that the nanites in the General's body were of a vastly simpler design compared to those used by the Asurans/Alterans. These 'dumbed down' nanites needed only a few hundred commands to function as compared to the hundreds of millions needed by a replicator nanite.

In the end the international research team had needed the aid of the Pangaran's expertise in advanced chemistry as reprogramming the Argos nanites required more of an expertise in chemistry and micro-biology than software programming. The comparatively simplistic nanite's very molecular structure was the algorithm that dictated their behavior and thus they did not posses the structures that allowed more complicated systems to be rewritten remotely, evolve or mutate into an otherwise harmful form. With finite life-spans so long as the original batch was correctly made, there was little risk of harmful mutations.

For the Pangarans the breakthrough meant the creation of a highly efficient medical delivery system that could specifically target areas of the body in need of treatment and deliver the correct amount of medicine at the appropriate time. In this way the Pangaran people would be able to more efficiently distribute Tretonin and perfect other non-invasive medical treatments.

Though it would be several years before the nanites were cleared for widespread usage, the O'Neill vaccine as it was coming to be called would be administered to all personnel in key military and civilian posts within Earth Union after a few short years of rigorous testing, sooner in the case of those accepted for clinical trials. The treatment would be in a form of nanites that slowly released a charge of mitochondrial energy as well as several anti-senescence drugs as a means to prolong an individual's healthy lifespan. A military-only version was developed as an emergency medical treatment for critically injured personnel; these nanites released their energy quickly into a body while working to destroy any mind-altering toxins resulting from such exposure and administer other vital medications where necessary.

And O'Neill…

After serving with honor as the Terran Federation's first Marshal of Joint Military Command, Colonel General Jonathan J. O'Neill retired at the ripe old age of 98 to spend his remaining fifty or sixty odd years in peaceful retirement…again.

It wouldn't be the first time if he was recalled to duty after retiring.

Thankfully nobody came knocking.

And for some reason he had a feeling that the time was soon a' coming. Making no comment Jack scratched his pet dog behind the ears and opened the door to the log cabin in which he lived. The frisky German Shepherd bounced its nose against the bottom of the cooler that was now being carried under-arm, whining slightly as it did so.

"Just a minute Rover…then we'll see 'bout getting 'ya something to eat."

Resting the box on the counter, he reached into the cooler and pulled out an old P229 handgun, aiming it squarely at the dog.

Or where there used to be a dog…

And now there was a woman in a white cotton dress…

"_She looks like a young Mary Steenburgen,"_ Was the thought that flitted through Jack's mind as his eyebrows rose and his eyes widened in surprise.

She was wearing a very thin…form-fitting, white cotton dress.

And he was pointing the gun at her naughty place.

His gun didn't waver however, and she didn't look concerned, which meant one of two things; either she didn't recognize the gun as something that could hurt her…

Or he was in deep shit.

Jack spoke lightly as he warily backed away until his back bumped into the kitchen sink and his empty hand brushed against a hidden biometric scanner.

"Y'know, I once knew a guy who knew a guy that could do that…Change into a dog and back, I mean." He smirked slightly as he spoke.

Pretending to slouch against the side of the sink, he asked nonchalantly, "I don't suppose you're related?"

Instead of answering, the woman tilted her head to one side in a bird-like manner and asked him a question.

"How did you know that I was not what I seemed to be?" She said.

Jack's eyes narrowed as he recognized something about her manner, He groaned internally as his hand moved away from the panic button hidden behind him and punched in a four digit code on a panel to one side.

"For a starter," He said, "I don't own a dog." Speaking slightly louder in an attempt to hide the slight humming behind him he continued. "Neither do my neighbors last I heard and you were too clean to be a stray and besides…"

In a burst of white light an anti-replicator gun materialized in the sink and O'Neill blindly scooped it up and pointed both weapons at the artificial being that he suspected was standing before him.

"The security field surrounding my house would have kept out a normal stray animal." He finished tersely.

"Who sent you?" Jack growled.

It did not set his mind at ease that replicator (_suspected but likely given his luck_) didn't seem view the ARG as a threat either.

So much for a peaceful retirement…

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**Earth, Minnesota 2049**

The stars were out over Minnesota Sector when a narrow vertical rectangle of inky darkness opened up in a small forest clearing three and a half kilometers away from Jack's O'Neill's cabin, 2800 meters away from the shore of Lake Bob that was opposite Jack's cabin; with a a couple of small stands of trees between the two. It was a cloud covered night and the agent in the hidden transport factored that information in as deft fingers keyed in a projection path for the ZR27 extended range, self-spotting sniper rifle.

An unacknowledged, cloaked intelligence satellite had been appropriated for use in this mission, despite the heavy cloud cover, its passive detectors were still able to analyze and relay accurate data on the environmental factors at ground level in real time with a five minute projection on wind speed, surface temperatures, gyroscopic drift and their calculated cumulative effect on the projectile's kill-path.

Aside from a small herd of deer that the agent noted half a klick to the west, the were no large bodies moving through the forest and the only other blips were from various rodents and small predators moving about above, on and below ground, going about their nightly routine of survival, ignorant of what was about to happen.

The agent was not too enthused about what the way that the mission had turned out. In spite of this individual's current profession, the agent's was described in psychiatric profiles as an idealist and the man that was about to be killed was someone deeply respected and admired by the agent.

"Still," the person mused as dark eyes watched a cleaned up image showing the two blips within the house. In spite of the security field, which was of a slightly higher grade than what was normally, commercially available, on the monitor the green symbol for the general and the ice blue indicator for the bio-replicant, could clearly be seen located across from one another in the living-room.

"_My orders are specific in the event of this scenario, damn that thing for getting to him first! Shit! Choodmarani!" _

The figure within the transport sighed, what ever the agent thought, the orders given were clear; this was for the greater good… that was what the agent believed.

When, a few seconds later, the smart projectile indicated that its orders had been downloaded, the agent activated the small sound deadening field around the weapon and with a push of a button, fired.

The ZR27 was a smart rifle designed in late 2031 as a kinetic delivery system for the E6221 semi-autonomous smart projectile. The concentric cylinders that composed the barrel of the gun utilized modern knowledge of magnetic field geometries to create a very deadly weapon.

The inner barrel was composed of a Gauss-Rail or Walburn array. A series of pseudo-coils, made from a room temperature superconductor, each one thinner than a human hair, composed the length of the inner cylinder. Each individual pseudo-coil was coated with an inert, artificial resin and then weaved into the predetermined configuration before being evenly coated again to ensure the barrel's stiffness and that the coils would be protected when the weapon was fired.

The outer cylinder was a modified Halbach array that augmented the magnetic field within the barrel while canceling the external electromagnetic spike when the weapon was fired in order to minimize detection and to protect surrounding unshielded equipment. The Halbach array was also used to keep the projectile slightly out of contact with the sides of the barrel and in line with the central axis with an accuracy and precision that was calculated in femtometers.

Once engaged the augmented Walden array would generate a magnetic field the geometry of which from a lateral view of the inside of the barrel would look like a series of biconcave waves moving down the length of the barrel.

The majority of the smart bullet's mass was composed of an alloy with a high magnetic saturation point that would allow the field to accelerate the bullet up to a muzzle exit velocity of 1900 meters per second. The surface of the smart bullet was teeming with billions of nano-machines that used the EM spike and heat from the friction of moving within atmosphere of create pits and raise millions of micro-cilia in order to alter the surface of the ULD or ultra-low drag configuration of the projectile. If needed, the nanites could alter the very shape of the bullet and the individual micro-cilia could alter their profile in the wind.

There was zero muzzle-flash, minimal sound and thermal signatures, no moving parts other than the working fluid that vectored the minute resulting recoil into the gyroscopically controlled, electronic stabilizers. The nanites left behind in a wound could be programmed to alter the geometry of the wound tract to destroy evidence before deconstructing into compounds commonly found in the body.

The system was designed to work from a maximum range of six kilometers in a moving vehicle, _while being shot at by the enemy and still put all four chambered rounds into a hole smaller than a pre-Earth Unification American dime_.

The end result was a smart projectile that could be fired at extended ranges and within the limits of its initial momentum; moves from side to side, up, down or even turn 180 degrees as needed to engage single or multiple targets within its preprogrammed kill-path. The smart projectile had a mass similar to the projectile used in the now defunct 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. The smart weapon was also capable of carrying an imbedded capsule that could contain a range of nerve agents, incendiary compounds or other devices.

Thus it was that the projectile was able to weave through the stand of trees and tree branches, pass over the lake, through another stand of trees, avoiding a hapless bat hunting insects before passing through the security field, altering its path slightly down, then sharply upward and then down again in order to enter through a slightly open window, turn into the living room ten meters away, in time for the device imbedded within the bullet to activate, and disable the two different types of nanites within O'Neill and the humanoid bio-replicant in a manner projected to rendering both individuals unconscious and inactive for a period of time no longer than five hundred and ten seconds.

All the while moving at supersonic speeds.

The two hadn't even had time to slump over in their chairs when the smart bullet altered its contours, flared it's micro-cilia and abruptly slowing its velocity in time to fall into the flames of the cabin's open fireplace. The nanites used the heat bloom and the abundant hydrocarbons to create a specific compound before self-terminating.

Within three hundred seconds smoke was billowing out of the windows.

Within five hundred seconds the blaze had spread from the living room into other parts of the house…

The agent closed the door to the transport and remained on watch until fire services arrived and the deaths of the general and his, to the general public, unknown companion were confirmed.

The investigation and other loose ends would be handled by others.

The agent left in the cloaked transport for the first of a series of arranged safe houses before a month later taking the GravLev in Kourou, Guyane up to Earth Union Space Station where the agent would discreetly join the intergalactic pleasure liner where if questioned, the passenger manifest, virtual messaging logs and a selection of fellow passengers and crew would say that this individual had always been for the past few months without ever having stepped on Earth in the last five years.

If the agent felt any remorse for what had happened there was always the fervent belief that what had been done was necessary to preserve the safety and security of the Terran Federation.

That was what the agent believed.

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**Azura Space Station, Orbital Terminal of Quito GravLev, Departure Gate 52D, Civilian transport departing for the intergalactic liner **_**Lustrious**_** enroute from Sol to Elysium, Eden Star System. **

The young woman smiled as her daughter finagled a sweet from a youthful couple on vacation. She listened with good humor to their stories about how shocked their grandchildren were to learn that they had been selected for the new somatic treatments, and how pleased they were to spend their 42nd wedding anniversary going on a third honeymoon to see the famous beaches on Eden and dragons hunt in the mountainous plains of Elysium.

And yes, wasn't she pleased to have such a darling child, and oh, she was meeting the father on Eden. Was he a Contractor? What? Oh yes, the Mediators were the ones that were humans but he's just there writing an article, I see a journalist.

A half an hour later they were aboard the _Lustrious_ and the couple had gone off to try to get into the mosh pit in time to see the Mazes play on their silver reunion tour.

The woman stayed near a large panoramic view-port, watching as Earth fell away. As the ship opened a hyperspace window, her final thoughts in the Solar system were morose.

As the girl clutched his hand and pulled a half-eaten lollipop from her mouth, she turned to her mother and with the usual precociousness of a six year old said, something very mature. "Would you like to hear something comforting?"

The young woman looked over at her and slowly nodded.

"Even when the odds are against you suck it up! It could be worse! So when your back's up against the wall and there's no tomorrow, just take one day at a time and remember, the bigger they are…etcetera."

The woman stared for a second then she said. "You've been waiting fifty-nine years to feed that line right back to me haven't you?"

The girl smirked and held up a finger. "Fifty-eight"

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**Ban Ki-moon Lagrange Point TFSF Spaceship Construction Yard Sol System, 2050 **

"_-and in closing, I say again, we are reminded at this time of the chaotic days of our past…the sacrifices… the deaths due to our folly and we are reminded of those who stood forth and gave their fullest effort in those difficult times. As we must give here and now, I ask that you remember these sayings, dawn does not come twice to awaken a man and the saying. He who has health has hope; he who has hope has everything. I christen this vessel in remembrance of one who has given no more and no less, than his all!!" _

_**-Amatsalām Ahlam al-Jamil bint Istfan ibn Sadad **__**al-Mu'min, **_**third Marshal of the Terran Federation's Joint Military Command during the Terran Federation Military Force's** **Flagship Commissioning and Launch of the DSBS J.J. O'Neill, first of its class **_**–translated-**_

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**GravLev:** One of a number of construction projects in the aftermath of the resulting crises following Disclosure, the Gravimetric Elevator was a global project commisioned by the UN and later the Earth Union Assembly. Intended as an answer to the OPEC nations' cut in oil production in response to economic embargoes, the growing need for raw materials not readily available on earth as well as other industrial, scientific, social and political factors; the base station of the first GravLev was constructed off the coast of Kourou, Guyane in the Atlantic ocean on the equatorial line.

A cluster of three elevators, each one 1103 meters tall, composed of light-weight, high-strength materials rested on berths in the Kourou Base Station. Each elevator was made of a modular design comprised of several large cylindrical tubes bundled together, each tube was large enough to contain up to five supercarriers stacked vertically bow on stern and still leave space for five hotels, nine restaurants, eight swimming pools, a hospital, a casino, a public gymnasium, a theater, a shopping mall, a concert hall and more than two thousand private residences.

In addition to the large volume of freight that could be moved to and from Earth Union Space Station in geosynchronous orbit, the GravLev paid for itself. Equipped with multiple redundant inertial dampeners and a set of primitive gravimetric projectors that drastically reduced the effect of gravity and inertia on its mass, the GravLev provided a comfortable, fifteen minute ride into orbit as it pulled itself up along a set of light and incredibly strong nanotube-based, trinium/polycarbon tethers and cables that were also used to protect super-conducting power transmission lines from the Neutrino/Ion reactors in orbit aboard Union Station.

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**A.N. Life is getting busier now for me so I decided to just edit the first half of what I was writing and post it as the second chapter. This was always intended for a willed future only I couldn't find a place for it until a reviewer gave me an idea. As for the Colonel general thing, since there was a comment before. As far as I know this isn't an actual rank used in the U.S. Air Force and I added it because it does exist in other foreign military organizations and the Earth Union and TFSF experienced a similar unification of military forces. I'd just re-read the Light Fantastic before writing the death scene for Daniel, Proof-read the story twice after I was finished and then twice again after a break and still there were errors when I checked again! TTFN**


	3. Chapter 3

**This story is a work of fanfiction and any similarities to the characters of any television, film or literary work is completely intentional. The author does not in any way shape or form profit from the following work nor claims any responsibility for the efforts of others. Said author acknowledges that they simply weren't cool enough to think of something like this on their own. The following story is a fanfiction cross over. **

**Untoward Truth: The Gemini Mirage**

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**Earth Union Academy First Lecture**

The lecture hall was filled with PoliSci students, both literally and figuratively _there_ as students from various GeoPols attended via tele-presence, their images arrayed along the auditorium walls by plasma-film projectors. It was another five minutes until the beginning of class.

Outside of the lecture-room in the men's room down the hall the Course Lecturer looked into a mirror as he waited for his body to return to his control. He swallowed thickly and shut his eyes as the touch-screen mirror/monitor that displayed the morning news held no data on a topic that was particularly important to him.

The FDA had yet to clear a course of drugs and treatments that was expected to be a cure for certain types of neurological disorders including Parkinson's disease. The fifty year old Professor had begun showing signs of the disease six years earlier and had applied for a course of drugs purported to treat the symptoms and delay the progression of the disease significantly.

Although he had been able to live a normal and productive life the NLD treatments represented something else entirely.

It represented freedom.

It was freedom from tremors, freedom from stiffness, from slurred speech, freedom from a body that betrayed him when the effects of the Pangaran drugs that he was taking began to wear off.

For a lecturer not being able to articulate his thoughts was a threat to his livelihood.

The tremors stopped.

Professor Von Bergier lifted his left hand before his eyes.

There was nary a twitch.

He thought of the neurological drug treatments currently under scrutiny by the agencies of the Central Authority and what it could mean for him and millions of others.

Just as the doctors suggested, he made a tight fist and then tried to open his hand again.

The ring and little fingers were stiff and refused to unbend for a full three seconds. He tried the exercise again and again until the joints moved smoothly ten out of ten times.

He looked into the mirror grimly and muttered.

"Will he nil he…"

With a pass of his hand, a millimeter above the surface of the mirror, the virtual newspaper with its moving pictures and text scrolled closed and thanked him for viewing.

Entering the lecture hall he was gratified to see all his students present, or tele-present, and accounted for. He was certain of this as the smart-room had already taken an updated class poll and informed him of the results every five minutes before he'd even crossed the threshold of the building's entrance.

He walked slowly but calmly to the front of the classroom, picked up the control tablet for the main projector and began speaking.

His voice was soft and airy, with a slight mid-western touch. Microphone receivers focused on his person picked up his words, projecting them to every student physically present via modulated ultrasound waves from the directional speakers built into the walls and ceiling. The sound and images were also streamed live to viewers throughout the world and recorded for transmission to Academy Worlds.

"We're here today to talk about World War Three." He said.

He leaned against the podium and gave a wry grin. "Most people don't like calling it that. I've heard that it's been called what…" Bergier deliberately passed and looked around meaningfully, wanting to see who had read the last week's assignment.

A girl in the front row answered.

"The Intra-System Crises" The answer was delivered confidently.

Von Bergier grinned, "Yes, yes, the Intra-System Crises, a very ungainly term but one loaded with an abundance of meaning, its also slightly misleading; as if the 'Crises' was limited to Sol, what else was it called?"

"The Synodic War?" That was the half question-half answer that came from one of the tele-present students.

"Ah!" Von Bergier perked up at that answer. "Does any one know why it was called that?" A few students looked like they had an idea but were not confident in their answer. "No? Then I'll explain in a minute."

"Anyone else…"

When there was no answer the Professor scribbled on his tablet and a world map slightly different from its twentieth century version appeared on the screen.

For starters it looked like someone had submerged part of Hokkaido and taken bites out of the east coast of the Korean Peninsula and the western coast of Mexico.

There was also a barren patch of land where Poland used to be.

Von Bergier spoke.

"When someone says 'World War' The thought that goes through my mind is a massive conflict involving most of the world powers, much of a country's industrial and scientific expertise; and involving or affecting the lives of people throughout the world."

After pausing to look at the map, he continued.

"World War III may have been _brief_," He stressed the word, "But in terms of its impact socially, politically, scientifically and economically on both the civilian and military populace of the world. I can't call it anything but a **World War**."

As he spoke numbers began appearing under the projected three-dimensional map.

..................................................

Under the heading…World War I

**Allied Powers-------------Central Powers **

**Military Dead--------------Military Dead**

5,525,000----------------------4,386,000

**Military Wounded----------Military wounded**

12,831,500---------------------8,388,000

Under the heading…World War II

**Allied Leaders--------------Axis Leaders**

**Military Dead---------------Military Dead**

More than 14,000,000--------More than 8,000,000

**Civilian Dead---------------Civilian Dead**

More than 36,000,000--------More than 4,000,000

..............................................

"By conventional dating the First World War began in 1914 and ended in 1919 with a ceasefire in December of 1918." The Professor spoke as the much more accurate and detailed data appeared on the projection and on the students' tablets.

"World War Two is conventionally held to have occurred from 1941 to 1945 though belligerence between combatants began years before and did not completely end until years after. And then…" The Professor added, "There was the Cold War which lasted a further, um, forty-five years."

Von Bergier scratched his forehead and grinned, before clearing his throat and sipping from a bottle of water.

"The reason why the Third World War is sometimes also called the Briefest World War has a lot to do with the fact that by this time all the major powers involved in the conflict were quite capable of wiping each other out of existence and quite quickly, very nearly did so. We had a MAD scenario on our hands, mutually assured destruction!"

The Professor was pacing the floor now.

"As for the reason why people call this conflict the Synodic War is because, well a Synodic Month is a period of time lasting approximately 29 days which was also the number of days from the official beginning of hostilities in 2025 to the end of the fighting and the signing of the first Global peace treaty in the beginnings of New Warsaw."

He stopped pacing.

"Close to twenty-nine days of fighting."

Quietly,

"Just twenty-nine days with the weapons we possessed in those days."

There was a crooked grin on Von Bergier's face

The projection changed.

World War I

Total Dead

Over 15,000,000

.........................

World War II

Total Dead

Over 62,000,000

..........................

World War III

Total Dead

Over 270,000,000

.........................

In the silence that followed Professor Mark von Bergier asked rhetorically, "Brief or not, doesn't that count as a World War, four percent of the world dead?"

His smile was grim as he added, "And if the IOA hadn't quickly negotiated the New Warsaw peace treaty, it could have been worse."

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**Bel Shahba, Former Slave World of System Lord Camulus, Free 'Trader' City Trachon, 2049**

Night-time in Bel Shahba is a dangerous time to be roaming the streets. The crowd of dirty, smelly people haggling, trading, lying and stealing paid no attention to the lone figure walking past one of hundreds of trash filled alleyways.

They paid no attention even as a group of thugs sprang from the alley and in the middle of the day, dragged the lone pedestrian into the shadows of the alley, beat him brutally and robbed his unconscious body. A few enterprising individuals snuck in after the aggressors had left and picked the body clean. The naked, unconscious man would later awaken to find himself being branded, chipped and sold into slavery at an establishment that even the residents of Trachon found scandalous.

Day-time in Bel Shahba is a dangerous time to be roaming the streets…

That was why few people cared when the same group of muggers were killed when they tried to rob a cloaked figure who unfortunately for them, turned out to be armed with a zat'n'ktel. Aside from the scavengers they simply went on haggling, trading, lying and stealing.

Like the other former slave worlds in Lawless Space, the people here followed the philosophy, 'Do unto others what you can get away with'

In a bar in one of the middlingly seedy parts of Trachon, a man named Fizz nursed a tankard of something vile. No, that wasn't fair he supposed. The greasy concoction that he had been grumpily served by a slatternly barmaid probably was _somewhat _digestible, if he was a ruminant. But, since he was not actually some sort of domesticated ungulate he figured that it'd be safer and less suspicious to his hidden watchers if he simply nursed his drink. Subtly he emptied it little by little onto the stone floor in the shadows of the backroom that he had rented for his upcoming meeting, the ochre liquid sizzled and scoured mold from the stone.

He didn't look up at the menacing, cloaked figure that entered the room and sat at his table. Trachon was crawling with menacing, cloaked figures so this wasn't unusual. Actually he'd half expected to be attacked by the murderous in proprietess that thought she was safely hidden behind the room's fake wall. She probably would have attacked him if eavesdropping wasn't more profitable.

Other than the one sitting across from him he had counted fifteen shadowy figures in the front room of the bar when he came in who looked to be of the menacing variety. As a matter of course his hand was on his plasma gun under the table, a bit clichéd he knew, but one had to observe the forms of mercenary etiquette, he was sure that Mr. Cloak was doing the same.

Strangely enough, _that_ gave him a sense of comfort.

Noobs were so annoying to do business with.

His trigger finger tensed slightly as Mr. Cloak reached into his, er, cloak and pulled out a, data cube and a security jammer?

Mr. Cloak's voice sounded distorted and synthetic, that combined with the devices sitting on the table pointed to three facts.

Fact one, he was dealing with someone with access relatively high tech gear which _**might **_mean trouble.

Fact two, his client obviously didn't want to be recognized, meaning that he was somewhat important or well known, which _**could **_mean trouble.

Fact three, given facts one and two he was probably getting into something that was over his head which _**did**_ mean trouble.

He was about to refuse the job, whatever it was, and get the Ne'tu away when Mr. Cloak stated a figure.

"_Oh, well that changes everything."_

He and his partner could retire on that figure. For that much naquadah, he could spend the rest of his days in a drug-addled daze surrounded by buxom wenches eager to fulfill his every whim on a self-made paradise.

The Mr. Cloak stated a name.

Fizz almost left again but the figure that had been stated kept him in the room with visions of laughing virgins dancing before his eyes.

"I'm listening." Was what he said.

"You'll be paid ten percent now and the rest upon successful delivery. Remember, you'll only be paid if he's recovered alive, not injured or dead." Mr. Cloak told him.

Fizz tried to haggle a better deal, "It'll be difficult." He said, "My people could be bringing a lot of trouble down on our selves for a mere ten percent advance!"

Unfortunately he was dealing with a pro. "For ten percent you could fly for years without taking another job, the data I've given you should allow you to bypass security without much trouble, and if you pull this off you would be more than compensated for your work and continued discretion. Only if you bring him to me alive though, for six thousand drachmae of hard pressed Naquadah I don't want to see him die!"

Fizz shivered at the amount, and against his better judgment agreed to take the job.

Soon after, the two parted ways.

A little after that every bounty hunter looking to make their mark on Trachon had heard the fragmented words recorded through the penetrated security jammer.

They knew the figure…

They knew the name…

"_Remember (static) only be paid (static) recovered (static) dead!"_

_(Some indistinct noises)_

"_For six thousand drachmae (static) I (static) want to see him die!"_

Nearly every merc on the entire planet and their gradmas mobilized.

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**Castle Black, Elysium, Eden Star System, ELAW controlled space. **

It was a sunny afternoon on the planet Elysium. On the ramparts of a large castle built into the side of a mountain, a man sat brooding moodily over a report that had just been filed. It concerned a troubling incident on a planet called Bel Shahba in what was considered Lawless Space, Lucien Alliance Space. The entire mercenary force of the planet had mobilized and he had a sneaking suspicion why.

The man was dressed in the clothes that were currently in style among the residents of Elysium. He wore a white, flowing shirt made from a cotton-like material, and a pair of pants that seemed to be made from some kind of strange leather. A blue and bronze robe with entangled silver belts lay next to him, hanging over the stone lip of the castle wall. The robes identified him as an ELAW mediator.

Under his clothes he wore a thin, nano-generated black and red bodysuit that was currently popular among ELAW spacefarers for its abilities. Stored within a containment unit when not in use or being cleaned, the nanosuit spread from its fabricator, which was in the form of a belt or collar and printed itself onto the bare skin of its wearer. It had a fully functional personal computer and communication system for those not wired for remote access to the net.

With some minor attachments, like a micro shield generator or an energy capacitor, it functioned admirably as both as an emergency space suit and as a low-level decontamination suit resistant to radiation and airborne pathogens. It was a useful thing to have aboard a spacecraft. These suits were one of the two articles of clothing that mediators were most often required to wear in the performance of their duties.

Also as a result, since nanosuits were often worn by mediators, particularly stunningly popular idols like Victoire Weasley and Lily Rose Potter; the general public of Elysium, even the terrestrial-bound, wore them as well as they went about their daily lives.

However, even in an era where there were technologies and drugs that could keep an individual perpetually fit and looking like a supermodel regardless of diet and exercise, simply going about wearing only a nano-bodysuit was considered more than a little risqué outside of a spaceship.

On Elysium the competing concepts of public (in)decency, freedom of expression and personal modesty at times lead to some interesting fashion trends. For example, high above the man on the castle ramparts was a group of eighteen year-olds, seven boys and seven girls playing a game on flight-rods. All of the girls wore clothing in combination with a brightly colored bodysuit, typically though, the clothing was little more than an open jacket and a micro-skirt or tights. The boys wore even less.

So while personal modesty compelled the woman that flew over the brooding man's head to wear a dress, the silver flight-rod clutched between her thighs was really the only thing that kept the sight from permanently lifting his spirits for the day.

Hands covered in black fingerless gloves, rested on the man's knees as he reluctantly turned his gaze away from the source of the raucous laughter above. He looked out over the plains of Elysium as the suns set over the horizon.

The seventh planet of the trinary Eden star system, the second of six life-supporting worlds located within the triplet's wide habitable zone, Elysium was dominated by a single, massive super-continent, Vanaheim, that made up forty-five percent of the planet's total surface area with the rest of it covered by glaciers or by the aragonite seas.

The coastal areas were predominantly densely forested and progressed toward vast plains of grassland as one traveled inland, plains grazed by endless herds of aurochs. The north and south poles were covered in massive ice shelves. Weather control satellites were used sparingly to limit continental glaciation in combination with the geothermal energy extractors and seismic stabilizers in the mountain ranges at the center of the landmass.

The Ruber Mountain Range was a landmark that divided Vanaheim into quadrants and was named in honor of the first sentient known to have scaled their slopes unaided; helping to lay the keystone of what would become Castle Black, the fortress that was built into the mountain. The rest of the interior varied between deserts both hot and cold, forests around a few inland seas and mountains.

Castle Black overlooked Elysium's population center Luminais. A city that was carved out of the mountain in a matter of weeks, it stretched from a third of the way up the slope and spread out like a fan for several kilometers into the valley below, Luminais glowed softly in the fading light. The Alteran styled floating city, Ys, glittered in the sky atop of Mount Fang, the Ruber's fifth highest peak. All in all, the whole thing looked like the illicit love child of a J. R. R. Tolkien and Isaac Asimov fantasy.

Dwarves, dragons, cyborgs and all…

As he brooded, the man watched an aircar take off from a hovering landing pad that floated under a series of apartments built into the nearby mountainside. They were next to a hundred meter high, artificial waterfall. The view was filled with breathtaking rainbows and shone of scattered light while the roar of the water itself was muted by security barriers..

A cloud of shimmering lights like brilliant shards of emeralds, rubies and golden fireflies took off, startled as the air car sped away. The cloud of fairies formed into a rude gesture before winding their way across the skies, above the other airborne traffic, as they heading toward the floating gardens orbiting Ys. Far below, thousands of people bustled along moving walk ways, boarded hovering transports that rose from buildings that looked like Toltec pyramids or simply spun in place, disapparating and apparating with a crack of rushing air.

In the distance an augurey cried.

His glum expression didn't change even as a pair of twins, ten years old, one male and one female, of South Asian descent snuck up behind him. They were dressed in matching white and blue robes of a similar style to those resting beside the sitting man save that they also wore poofy white berets and the cuffs of their jackets and pants flared in a bell shape.

Leaping onto the man's back, surprising him, the two chattered in unison.

"What's the problem Teddy?"

"What's got'cha down Teddy?"

All they received was a grumble in reply.

With a mischievous grin they continued.

"Wanna feel our titties? That'll cheer you up!"

"Yeah wanna, wanna Teddy? Feel our titties?"

The man raised his head, with a face blank of expression. He reached over his shoulders and gripped one side of each twin's face in a hand. The he brought their heads together with a faintly audible –**thwock**-.

There was a twin squeal, then.

"Mean!"

"Big brother is too mean!"

"Stop saying creepy things!" Ted Lupin hissed, "Where did you two pick up such language that anyway?"

The twins looked at the older man innocently.

"Usha and Shiv say that you're always happy when Victoire lets you feel her titties." They said oblivious to the older man's discomfort.

Ted was now blushing red down to the roots of his hair, literally. "Shut up! Brats!"

The boy, Ashvin, grinned slyly. "You're just angry about Bel Shahba."

The girl, Asha, smirked. "We told you she wouldn't listen."

Reminded of the report Ted deflated, "The Director's going to kill me!" the metamorphmagus moaned as his hair turned dull grey in color and his nose became beaky.

The Director of Mediations for ELAW's Bureau of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs was the individual responsible for the assignment of missions and directing the coordination of the activities of mediators like Ted Lupin and his contractor partners, the artificial binary life-form Asha/Ashvin PSL Sentia/Trivia. Days earlier, Ted had been assigned a mission by the Director.

A mission that he had apparently failed…

A few years before, Ted had been on another assignment, a diplomatic mission to an intensely patriarchal society that adhered to many and varied codes of law and conduct. He was been given the temporary title of Consul and in his excitement over the matter Ted had missed a vital detail during the briefing given by the pedantic representative of the diplomatic core. He was thus unaware of something very important when the time came for him to step forward to say hello to the Bithynian delegation.

The result was a series of gaffes that caused Ted to blunder into first inadvertently declaring a blood feud, then challenging his host to a duel of honor, before finally proposing marriage to the promised bride of the planet's next Shogun, _and _accusing the woman's younger sister of being a slut.

He did this all within the first few minutes of the meeting, all through the use of a seemingly ordinary gesture of greeting.

Who knew that you could place such meaning in a simple handshake?

His blunder was now legendary among mediators as an extreme example of what _**not**_ to do in a first contact situation. However it seemed that by distracting the Bithynian protocol officers with the conundrum of who had the honor of killing him first, Ted's behavior had somehow apparently been exactly what was required to allow a team of ELAW diplomats to quickly negotiate a treaty with the Royal family of Bithynia over the course of eight months, potentially avoiding several years of political double-speak and maneuvering.

In the end, Ted had escaped with merely being banished from Bithynia.

Ad infinitum…

And a public spanking…

He and Victoire had only just returned to speaking terms a month ago.

"_Wait a second…"_

"They were counting on me screwing up weren't they?" Ted muttered in a monotone his hair became even stringier than before, and both his limp, lackluster locks and his eyes changed to a dull brown color at the realization.

One of the twins patted his shoulders. "There, there! Mama says thanks for the good work"

Asha kissed his cheek. "We knew we could count on you to fail!"

Ted was seriously considering changing his job to something less stressful, less…infuriating.

"_Son of a…" _

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**Earth Union Academy Second Lecture**

The lecturer seemed to be a bundle of nervous energy but after few minutes subsided.

He smiled at the class.

"Do you know what one of the very first things that the SGC did after they realized that there were other worlds, other System Lords out there?"

Von Bergier leaned against the podium. "Other than the reformation of the SGC, the recruitment of airmen and marines, the SGC scouted out various off-world locations for an alpha site. A secure area to which members of the scientific community, survival experts, craftsmen, soldiers and all the other individuals and equipment needed to start an off-world colony could be evacuated so as to preserve the American way of life should the worst happen to Earth."

Declassified pictures of the first Alpha site before its destruction are shown on screen and various students downloaded the information to their tablets.

"And as soon as China and Russia had the chance as well they wasted little time in creating their own little colonies. In fact the Earth Union Colony of Fenyang began as just such a colony."

The lecturer paused before continuing. "Setting up extraterrestrial colonies while jostling politically for control of the stargate the politics of it was nebulous at best."

The lecturer chuckled, "The Chinese Republic wanted more access to the stargate and they didn't want it in the hands of the American affiliated SGC. The Americans were in an exclusive technology trade agreement with the Russians for continued support in allowing them to maintain control of the gate and keep it out of the control of the People's Republic of China."

Von Bergier shook his head ruefully. "The Russians allowed the Americans to shoulder the cost both monetary and in lives, testing prototypes, developing safety protocols and then they appropriated the tried and tested technology for their own use as allowed in the treaty. Britain, France and the other countries that were 'let in' on the secret helped shoulder the cost of the program later on in exchange for a share to the prize."

The next slide was of a newspaper headline…

It read, **"ALIENS EXIST!!!"**

It was followed by a short video.

The professor sighed as crowds marched across the projected display. "Boy, were people pissed!"

"How do you describe the feeling of having tangible and incontrovertible proof that your government has not only been lying to you but that they've been doing it for decades!" The lecturer said as image after image was projected onscreen.

"I was just a freshman back then and let me tell you, it was chaos. Alien watchers and conspiracy theorists were gathering in the streets to celebrate, but in other places those gatherings became bitter protests."

The images are newsreels and clippings describing protests in London, Geneva, Moscow, Washington, New York, Beijing, Paris, Ottawa, Tehran, Berlin just to name a few places. In some of the videos the protests degenerated into violence. In others embattled politicians flanked by IOA representatives or public relations personnel sought to mollify mobs of protestors and reporters.

Then there were the strange and outrageous headlines.

Like…

**FARMER TO SEEK COMPENSATION FOR ILLEGAL RECTAL IMPLANT CLAIMS EMOTIONAL DISTRESS!**

"_I couldn't sit down properly until the doctors took it out!"_ Haah-haah-aah, the weather-beaten old man sighed in horror as he shivered on screen, _"G'Dang thing was ten inches long, I was constipated for weeks before I got it taken out!" _

Or

**MOTHER OF TWELVE SUES FOR CHILD SUPPORT, CLAIMS FATHER TO BE ROGUE ASGARD FROM IDA GALAXY!**

"_If he can do the crime he can definitely do the time!"_ A bedraggled woman in curlers yelled as she clutched at a pair of wide-eyed, struggling toddlers.

Or perhaps

**WORLD WIDE CLASS ACTION SUIT TO SEEK COMPENSATION FROM IOA MEMBERS FOR OVER ONE HUNDRED ALIEN ABDUCTIONS**

"_No more cover up! It's time for you to pay up!" A large crowd marched on the IOA London branch. "No more cover up! It's time for you to pay up!"_

There was a constant stream of laughter in the lecture hall as the headlines and videos ran by ranging from the spurious to the outrageously ridiculous, but the class quickly sobered at the next headline.

**TEHRAN SWEARS AN END TO WESTERN IMPEREALISM**

The man seemed thin and strained with graying hair but his eyes glittered with determination. The translation program was running for the few who didn't speak Farsi, regardless of whether the students understood, his tone and manner were intense enough to convey his feelings.

"_They have created a set of double standards, telling us disarm-disarm, all the while building greater numbers and more powerful types of nuclear weapons, and telling us disarm-disarm, you will only bring calamity! All the while they were colluding together, breaking international peace treaties, courting disaster with alien powers and putting these new nuclear weapons in their missile bases, in their satellites, in their puppet's hands, on the moon and on their spaceships."_

His eyes were red with rage as he raised a hand and slapped the conference table.

"_THIS CANNOT NOT BE TOLERATED!"_

And the next,

**RUSSIA, U.S.A. AND CHINA FLOUT NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY**

"_And it is the position of the, er, president and congress, Mr. Chairman that um, in these trying times, (cough) given the nature of the threat that it is necessary…"_

And the next,

**DETONATION IN IRAQ**

"_We can confirm that officials fear that an American military base has been targeted by ter…(a muted rumbling) Oh My God!! Are you seeing this! (static)…"_

The final view from the camera is a rising mushroom cloud over the distant cityscape visible from the hotel balcony...The announcer can only stutter in horror.

Followed by

**DETONATION IN MEXICO, DIRTY BOMB! FALLOUT SPREADING NORTH!**

"_We are appealing to international agencies for any and all available aid…"_

The horrific

**NUKE FOUND IN NEW YORK!!**

"_The suspects were shot dead and in an amazing display of heroics by the FBI with the aid of the new Homeworld Security act…"_

The terrifying,

**TERRORIST CELL CAPTURED!**

**BOMB FOUND IN ST. PETERS HARBOR!**

"_We now know that British Intelligence agents received a tip off from the Ark Royal in geosynchronous orbit above England about a suspicious radiation signature in the harbor…Minutes later the device exploded in orbit. The light was visible for just a few seconds as a pinprick in the sky, so distant but so deadly…Councilman Parker had this to say…" _

The troubling,

**PARKER WINS, UNITY MOVEMENT DEFEATS LABOUR PARTY**

"_The will of the people has spoken, do you hear me! _

_(The crowd roars in approval)_

_We stand at the brink of Oblivion!_

_We are at the cusp of Armageddon! _

_How did we get here? Who is responsible? Who will take responsibility for saving us?_

_I say! Look to the USA, the Ulcerated Sphincter of Ass-erica, what calamity they have brought upon us! Look to the Towel-heads, their many and varied savage depredations upon our noble land, their vile offspring and their diseased, cloaked whores! _

_Look around you and you will see the cause of God's wrathful judgment upon us. Muslims, Immigrants, Homosexuals, Terrorists, A__**LIENS!!**__ Disease-ridden degenerates, Freaks! Interlopers! They have to go! This is our test from God! Drive them into the sea! Chase them to the furthest boundaries of Holy Earth and beyond! Strength shall come through unity! Unity through faith! I am a God-fearing Englishman and I am damn proud of it!"_

The unbelievable

**BIOWEAPON UNLEASHED IN SINGAPORE! **

"_What was at first believed to be a re-emergence of a mutation of the avian flu is now suspected to been an enhanced version of small pox, but attempts so far to contain the spread of the disease have proven futile, travel advisories have gone up…We now know that what the bioweapon released was not small pox but an as of yet, unidentified, rapidly mutating organism that seems to be randomly mimicking the vectors of infection and propagation of a range of viruses and harmful organisms. We have now linked reports of a resurgence of the bubonic plague in India to reports of what appears to be an aerosolized version of HIV in Indonesia both cases are believed to have been caused by the bio-weapon."_

The fuse

**INVASION OF IRAN**

"_There is no word of whether the USS Odyssey or the USS Apollo will be involved in the invasion and if they are in what capacity, America has pledged that it will not to use its Aerospace domination fighters within the Airspace of Iran. Ominously, Russia and China have also pledged to see that America keeps its promise. What this could mean for the fractured leadership of the embattled IOA is still…'_

The drum roll

**RUSSIA MOVES AGAINST CZECH REPUBLIC, KOSOVO, AFGHANISTAN CLAIMS 'PROTECTING NATIONS', MOVEMENT IN GEORGIA!**

"_American protests and protests by the United Nations have so far been ignored. Demands that observers be placed… to insure the humane treatment of non-combatant civilians has also been rebuffed." _

The match

**CHINA ANEXES TAIWAN, BACKS NORTH KOREA **

"_In a surprise move today the Taiwanese government buckled under pressure to allow…"_

The lit fuse

**U.N. IMPOTENT?!**

"_The revised deadline has been passed three times. Thus far for the report requested of…What can only be seen as non-compliance by America and Russia to abide by …That China has reversed its decision to follow the recommendation of the Hague and continues to refuse to allow U.N. observers…" _

The march

**MISSILES CROSS DEMILITARIZED ZONE, DOGFIGHT OVER KOREAN PENINSULA!**

"_We have scattered reports that there have been sightings of Chinese Republic Aerospace domination fighters…The U.S. military has taken steps to ensure that no further losses are incurred, sources can neither confirm or deny whether the Odyssey and her sisters will be deployed…China denies…Russia has moved the Korelev II and the Putin into position over the Korean Peninsula in a blatant attempt to…" _

The fire

**PEACE TALKS FAIL, IBMS DEPLOYED IN TURKEY, CUBA, SOUTH KOREA, SAUDI ARABIA!**

"_OPEC nations have today ratified a move to instate total embargoes of oil shipments to the West, in spite of this, sources in Saudi Arabia and The United Arab Emirates claim that there might be a chance to reopen negotiations if Iran…" _

The wild fire

**WAR IN SPACE…**

"_The EUS Lohengrin and the RF De Gaulle have declared neutrality…There are reports of the Ark Royal being deployed in…genocide…Three-way fire fight…Detonations in orbit can be seen even during the day! Freedom Station is falling…"_

Boom

"It started as a minor diplomatic incident that could have been peacefully resolved if only tensions weren't running so high. All it took was a sensor ghost, a pair of nervous commanders in charge of spacecraft loaded to the gills with nukes. Add the trigger of a mutiny aboard the IOA controlled Ark Royal and the first shots of World War Three were fired." the lecturer continued.

**MARK EIGHT DETONATES OVER BAHAMAS**

A tourist aboard a cruise ship caught the event on camera, the sky…

Was on fire…

The man holding the camera was already dead, he just didn't know it yet, he would when the waves hit.

29 days

**SUN-TZU GOES DOWN OVER POLAND! MILLIONS DEAD!**

The newscaster speaks as the cameraman pans across the endless line of refugees. The sky is a dreadful grey yet under the scrutiny of the camera a mother makes a joyful reunion with her son and husband, a small moment of delight within a day of horror. The records will later show that more than half of these people die from a lack of access to urgently needed anti-radiation medication, the son and husband among them, the mother survives only to later commit suicide.

A lot can happen in 29 days

**DE GAULLE GOES DOWN OFF OF HOKKAIDO'S WEST COAST! ARK ROYAL DESTROYED IN ORBIT!**

The translation program is again active.

"_Rishiri and Okushiri report massive flooding, Yagishiri is submerged…We are tracking the movement of massive waveforms across the Sea of Japan…Earthquakes are being reported…a magnitude 5 on the… " _

They watched in silence the record of Humanity's vicious past.

The professor stood before them in shadow, he said.

"Twenty-nine days!

…

Then there was peace."

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**Archeological Dig, Ruins of Vis Uban Earth Calendar 2050**

Later, when Daniel tried to remember what had happened, all he would get was a slightly goofy, slightly woozy haze in his mind. He clearly remembered being called from his tent by an excited intern who wanted him to look over a strange yellow crystal. He remembered her voice as he bent over to take a closer look at the archeological find.

The woman had said something, "You've got a cute butt." She said.

Then there was a hard prick that sent a moving surge of pain into his ass and took him so suddenly that he nearly keeled over.

………………………

At that point Daniel's mind usually blanked…

……………………………….. …………………….

Maybe he should re-phrase that….

Perhaps add a bit more detail too…

Daniel hadn't paid that much attention to the dirty-blonde assistant standing right behind him until he heard her voice as he bent over to look at the find that she had excitedly brought to his attention in the middle of the night.

As Vice-President of an interplanetary organization and a diplomat he very rarely had the opportunity anymore to pursue his first true love.

Archaeology

When the head of the archeological survey team appointed by the Science Council had sent him an invitation, most likely in an attempt to squirrel more funding, Dr. Jackson hadn't turned down the chance. The head of the security detail assigned to him had pitched a fit but eventually Daniel had got his way.

Vis Uban was under ELAW control after all, it was safe.

He'd spent three weeks out in the sun from early dawn to late dusk patiently dusting away at rocks and translating Ancient writing, in the process he found that it'd been years since he'd been so deliriously happy. Best of all, no one was shooting at him!

Then this woman, Anka or Henka or whatever her name was, comes along and says. "Y'know, You've got a cute butt!"

His blood had run cold at that statement. It wasn't what she said, but was_ how_ she had said it. That comment was such a distinctly Vala-like thing to say.

It was the semi-gloating, semi-mocking, _'Don'tcha feel so bad Daniel, you know, at least you've got a cute butt...well you do!'_ type of tone that Vala had often used during their SGC days and continued to use even after they had struck out on their own.

She used it whenever she got greedy and triggered a death-trap in whichever temple they were exploring at the time or when they ran into one of her old 'business associates' who wanted to show them his/her/its gun collection via the _wrong end of the gun_.

Suffice to say, it invariably meant trouble…

He wasn't consciously aware of all of that however, it was merely the residual trauma from all of those Vala-moments that caused his fight or flight instincts to kick in. He was already in motion before she'd even finished speaking, trying to get his butt out of whatever trouble was headed his way.

Unfortunately he was shot in said butt before he could even dive behind cover…

Instead Daniel had found himself keeling over and only just caught his weight on the meaty flesh of the palms of his hands. He found himself scuttling forward and then sideways like a crab before slumping against a ruined pillar.

He blacked out for a second, then…

Coming to, he forced himself to his feet, using the pillar to steady his body as he plucked out a feathery dart with a three inch long needle that had been imbedded in his left buttock.

Unfocused blue eyes glared at the dart's fluffy red tuft before attempting to stare beadily at the woman coming up behind him twirling a gas operated blow-gun.

His lips felt numb and disconnected, his words were slurred.

"Wu wut we!" (_You shot me!_) He accused, waving the dart before her amused face.

And perhaps as a final complaint as to the injustice of it all, he added.

"Aw' we wut weeven wawwied!" (_And we're not even married!_)

Finally because he just _knew_ she had something to do with this, since paradoxically, being named Vice-President of the Terran Federation had actually _reduced_ the number of attacks on his person, Daniel asked with a tired sigh.

"Wut wid Wala wu wiz wime?"

No translation needed.

Then he had blacked out.

……………………………………….

Franka sighed in relief as the ring-transporter deposited her and the insensate archeologist in the cargo hold of the Tel'tac. Fizz was already there waiting for her.

"Took yer long 'nuff bin sight-seeing have we?" He asked in lieu of a polite greeting.

"Knock it off with the accent Fizz, he's out like a light." She answered. "What'd I dose him with anyway?"

With the air of a wine connoisseur Fizz rattled of the ingredients of his concoction. "I prepared for this evening a fine blend of beta-ketamine, gamma-hydroxybutanoic acid, diazepam and a certain special, secret ingredient worth ten to twenty years on a Terran prison world and thusly shall remain unnamed." He was smiling smugly proudly as he said that.

"How much did you need to use?" He asked as he came over.

"Hmm? All of it." Franka answered absentmindedly as she tousled her hair, the dust from the dig site had gotten _everywhere_.

Fizz stopped moving and his face fell. "All of it?" He asked with a note of foreboding.

"The whole vial?" He pressed her for confirmation.

Franka looked at him from out the corner of her eye as she upended a boot, dumping dirt on the metal floor, some of it splashed onto the body of her victim. "What's the problem?"

"Oh, nothing!" Fizz hummed in a voice squeaky with tension. He was checking the good doctor's pulse.

"Riiight." Franka said dubiously, she headed for the pilot's chair letting Fizz handle whatever was going on, he currently had his ear glued to their supine guest's chest and she could hear him cursing faintly.

Not her problem.

Faintly from behind her she heard Fizz swear before thumping the doctor's chest with his fist.

"Sokar!"

Perhaps they should hurry…nah…

Had Franka been a bit more wary after the successful kidnapping, perhaps she might have noticed the starship that uncloaked and scanned her vessel shortly before her ship entered hyperspace. Taking the readings of her inertial vector the tracker entered hyperspace as well.

As it was, that starship also had a discreet tail following after when it entered hyperspace on an inertial vector, parallel to the one that Franka's vessel, the _Wizard _had taken. A few minutes later another starship uncloaked and followed into hyperspace; and then another and another and another…

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**Minnesota Sector North American GeoPol 2049**

"For a starter," He said. "I don't own a dog." speaking slightly louder in an attempt to hide the slight humming behind him he continued. "Neither do my neighbors last I heard and you were too clean to be a stray and besides…"

In a burst of white light an anti-replicator gun materialized in the sink and Jack O'Neill blindly scooped it up and pointed both weapons at the artificial being that he suspected was standing before him.

"The security field surrounding my house would have kept out a normal stray animal." He finished tersely.

"Who sent you?" Jack growled.

It did not set his mind at ease that the replicator (_suspected_) didn't seem view the ARG as anymore of a threat than his sidearm.

So much for a peaceful retirement…

It began to speak, and his eyes widened at what he heard.

She began to transform and even his training couldn't stop him from lowering his gun.

"Oh, shit!"

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**Terra Cassiopeia, Terran Federation Research Center 2049**

Once every two and a half hours the Cassiopeia Stargate activated and robotic cargo haulers either entered or exited the gate. Once every two and a half hours it happened like clockwork.

Once in a while, technicians in radiological hazard suits passed through the gate, some were employed in surveying various pieces of equipment to see what needed to be repaired. In another large room others were checking the vital signs of various individuals who seemed frozen in place within closet-sized chambers. A few meters away from this chamber a group of astronomers were holding an excited conference as they prepared to take their places in the adjacent room.

Terra Cassiopeia was not an ordinary Terran Colony.

And General Samantha Carter knew that.

To begin with, Terra Cassiopeia orbited a stellar black hole, one and an half times the distance of Pluto from the Sol, violently whirling around the cosmic body at several hundred kilometers a second.

The small rogue planetoid had drifted too close to the black hole millions if not billions of years ago of years ago. Now, the only thing that saved it from its complete destruction was the fact that when the outpost under its surface had been built by the Alterans they had installed a temporal dilation device along with a number of massive gravimetric generators. A system of seismic stabilizers and powerful shields had been used to protect the facility and the planet from being torn apart by the enormous stresses.

In the beginning, a number of SGC personnel had died exploring the facility as the nascent Federation tried to discover why such effort had been put into this doomed planet. Terra Cassiopeia was slowly being dragged, millimeters at a time, deeper and deeper into the black hole's gravity well; as surely doomed as a boat that leaked faster than it could be bailed out. The mission had very nearly been cancelled after the first death.

What had kept the search teams going was the fact that Cassiopeia could only be accessed from one planet, a world designated by the SGC as PF3-7Z9 where Ancient writings spoke of a repository of knowledge. Later this planet was given the name Terra Andromeda and the activity through the andromeda gate was disguised be creating Camp Sparta, a training facility for the Federation's marines and terrestrial combat forces.

A long term research base was established on Andromeda and hidden, while search teams tried to discover just what was so important about the address that they had found.

The day before they were scheduled to abandon their exploration, the teams uncovered what proved to be a research facility stocked with several fully charged ZedPM.

It was getting to the devices that had proved a hassle.

The scientists had at first theorized that the temporal dilation device must have malfunctioned due to the lack of maintenance as time seemed to progress differently in different locations throughout the facility. Near the gate, the progression of time matched that of Terra Andromeda. Simple experiments determined that outside of the entrance corridor time passed up to seven times faster or slower than in the gate room depending on where in the facility one stood.

The facility was built in typical Alteran style; it was a single straight hallway a few hundred meters long progressing from the gate room to a massive underground cavern from which corridors branched out to various laboratories. The architecture incorporated precise geometric patterns and utilized mathematical relationships to create a visually spectacular and logically functional complex.

It was the empty suspended animation modules and the holographic system that came online when the research team tried to activate the database that eventually lead to the revelation of the outpost's function.

Using fabrication technology that had once been located in the area of the facility where time passed faster, the Alteran scientists in this outpost had planned to place their bodies in suspended animation while using the holographic interface to mentally conduct their research and production at an accelerated pace. Alteran starships could be built here in under a year from the perspective of an observer in normal space. There were even some of the basic tools for building new ZedPMs!

The facility's records indicated that this plan had eventually been abandoned due to an evacuation order that SGC archeologists suspected might have been part of the Alteran preparation to abandon the Milky Way Galaxy. While most of the facility was unfinished, the material fabrication technology that was there was either malfunctioning or far beyond the understanding of the scientist task with studying the artifacts.

What did work was the many Alteran diagnostic and research devices the uses for most of which were only partly understood. That and the basic apparatus for cinducting accelerated research. As a result it didn't take long for the Federation to decide that they wanted to establish a permanent research base of their own.

The outpost was secretly refurbished and manned by scientists with the aid of the Federation's newest generation of semi-autonomous robots. Constructed from durable components resistant to rust and accelerated wear these machines manned the dangerous, time-accelerated side of the facility. Some of these robots were humanoid in form so as to allow the automatons and the operators that at times controlled them to perform a wide variety of tasks.

Due to the high levels of radiation being emitted by the planetoid's neighbor, scientists working at the facility spent the majority of their time in suspended animation within the heavily shielded sleeping chambers using the holographic interface and the partially functional fabrication system to conduct amazing research.

Even in suspended animation, degradation due to radiation limited scientists to three seven year tours on Cassiopeia. In the Holographic Interface this added up to approximately 147 years combined working on research. Most left served only one or two tours. The sole exception was General Samantha Carter PhD.

This was her fourth tour as Base Commander.

It wasn't as if her body could be degraded much more than it already was.

It was an accident aboard the Odyssey during the Synodic Wars that had left her crippled and dying. Treatment of her injuries had been delayed for too long and on the twenty-eight day of the Synodic War, hours before the cessation of hostilities, General Samantha Carter PhD. officially died.

Unofficially, her consciousness had been downloaded into the Asgard datacore that now served as the primary server for Terra Cassiopeia's research scientists. In the beginning there was some discussion about whether to consider her an employee or property but after the Marshall's office threw it's considerable weight around the Federation had offered to create a cloned body for her at the end of her term of distinguished service, for now Sam was living a dream.

Aside from the fact that she hadn't been able to use the bathroom for close to two hundred years.

She knew that she didn't have a body, it was just that her last corporeal memory was of really having to _**go**_.

In contrast to the dark and gloomy base, Cyber Cassiopeia was more inline with what Sam supposed an active Atlantean Research Center would look like. The design followed that of the physical base but the walls were all a luminous white color, the cavern was divided into several levels by transparent fields of light upon which scientists worked or rested and various projects were conducted in the labs. Physically the fabricators and automatons followed the commands of the scientists.

But Sam Carter wasn't thinking about any projects, she was currently planning a jail-break.

It had started some years before. Isolated as she was Samantha also held security clearances that exceeded most military commanders in the Terran Federation and what she wasn't able to access by conventional means she was more than hacking into more secure systems. She just hadn't had any reason or inclination to do so.

Until she had intercepted an unauthorized request from the new Earth Union civilian advisor assigned to her command.

She had followed the trail of orders back as far as she dared and now had come to two conclusions.

First, there was no way she could allow what was planned to happen.

Second, they were onto her.

She didn't know how but she could already feel the threads of energy and coherent thought that comprised her being begin to unravel. Her collapsing personality matrix could not speak as that… monster stood before her gloating.

"I'm glad that we could meet again General, I'm sorry that it came to this, you were a useful pawn." His dark eyes glittered with malice. "Heh, don't worry your work will be put to good use."

What remained of Samantha Carter smiled.

"W-what!' The dark-haired man reeled in realization. "No!"

In the physical world the Datacore exploded in a shower of sparks. All save one of the occupied alcoves managed to free their sleeping scientists before their minds were destroyed, the one exception was the alcove containing a certain civilian advisor. The base was being evacuated, the gravimetric generators had failed and the temporal dilation device was next. When that failed Cassiopeia would be too dangerous to travel to by stargate and likely to be ripped apart by the gravitational forces anyway so all of Sam's precious work would be lost.

Scientists and soldiers scrambled to evacuate every last piece of equipment possible. The man was wrong though, much of Sam's work would be lost.

In the confusion no one paid attention the cryo-flask of replicator nanites that passed through the gate un-inspected.

It took her weeks but she managed it.

Sam 2.0 smiled at a stunned General O'Neill as her body reformed. "Hello Jack, it's been a long time ..."

As she'd expected, his reaction made her smile…they had to hurry.

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**A.N. Well, writing this was difficult, time wise and plot wise, I had to change so things around and well, I had other obligations. I'm still writing though. I also discovered that I have no talent for slinging racial slurs, see if you can spot the bit borrowed from V for Vendetta. Any way Gemini Mirage is the second part of Untoward Truth a few teasers for what comes later in the stories, the storyline is a bit more transparent than I'd like but its the best I can do in my free time. Eh? How much in earth money is six thousand drachmae of naquadah? Try buying an island and paying a hundred or so supermodels to be your playmates for thirty or so years, that much. Next Time Untoward Truth: Old Men. TTFN.**


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